Jennifer Aniston opened up about working with Dolly Parton on her upcoming film “Dumplin'” and said the legendary singer is “magic.”
“My character is an ex–pageant queen who is fun but broken. It’s a beautiful mother-daughter story,” the 49-year-old actress shared during an interview published Wednesday for InStyle magazine’s September issue. (RELATED: Jennifer Aniston UNLOADS On The Media For Speculating That She’s Pregnant)
“And, of course, there’s the amazing musical element: Dumplin’ is an homage to Dolly Parton, who wrote six original songs for this film,” Aniston explained. “She has a whole album coming out when this movie is released.”
“She’s magic,” the “Friends” star added. “I remember the first thing she said to me when she walked into my house. I said, ‘I don’t know how you do everything you’re still doing.’ She said, ‘Well, I dreamed myself into a corner, and now I gotta live up to it.”
Later, the “Horrible Bosses” star talked about what happened one night when she and Parton went to see “Dumplin'” together at a movie theater full of people who didn’t know they were there.
“When Dolly and I watched the movie together, we were in a theater full of people who didn’t know we were sitting in the back,” Aniston said. “During one of the funnier parts, she’s stifling her laugh and whispers to me, ‘They can’t hear my laugh. They’ll know my laugh.’ A couple of minutes later I look over and she’s crying, and she says, ‘But they don’t know my tears.'”
In the same interview, the actress hit back at “reckless assumptions” again in tabloid reports about how she’s reportedly “heartbroken” following her recent split from husband Justin Theroux after two and a half years of marriage.
“It’s pretty crazy. The misconceptions are ‘Jen can’t keep a man,’ and ‘Jen refuses to have a baby because she’s selfish and committed to her career.’ Or that I’m sad and heartbroken,” the “Break-Up”star explained. “First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken.”
“And second, those are reckless assumptions,” she added. “No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. No one considers how sensitive that might be for my partner and me.”
“They don’t know what I’ve been through medically or emotionally,” she continued. “There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they’re not, then they’re deemed damaged goods. Maybe my purpose on this planet isn’t to procreate. Maybe I have other things I’m supposed to do?”