It’s a New Morning
for Jennifer Aniston
从《老友记》到《早间新闻》,
詹妮弗·安妮斯顿的新旅程
LOS ANGELES — Jennifer Aniston was trying to have a quiet weekend away.
洛杉矶——詹妮弗·安妮斯顿(Jennifer Aniston)是想去别处度一个安静的周末。
It was just after her 50th birthday, and she’d boarded a plane for Mexico with six of her best girlfriends — most of whom have known her since her early days in Los Angeles, before Brad, before Justin, before “Friends” and before the tabloids, when they lived as neighbors on the same street in Laurel Canyon. (“We called ourselves the Hill People,” she said.) But a few minutes in, the pilot asked to speak with her. They had a tire missing, and they would have to return to Los Angeles.
刚过完50岁生日的她登上一架飞往墨西哥的飞机,和六个最要好的女朋友在一起——她们大都从她刚来洛杉矶的时候,在布拉德、贾斯汀、《老友记》(Friends)和小报之前就认识她,大家都住在月桂谷的同一条街上。(“我们自称山民,”她说。)但是几分钟后,飞行员要求和她谈话。他们有个轮胎不见了,不得不返回洛杉矶。
As the pilot burned off fuel, Aniston spent the next four hours cracking jokes and trying to remain calm (she is terrified of flying), while fielding text messages from friends who’d read about the “emergency landing” — which hadn’t actually happened yet.
在接下来的四个小时里,安妮斯顿一边讲着笑话,一边努力保持冷静(她害怕坐飞机),一边还要回复朋友们发来的短信,这些朋友们都读到了她“紧急迫降”的消息——这件事实际上还没有发生。
The women landed safely, switched planes and, the next night, gathered for a ritual they’ve been doing for three decades: a goddess circle. Seated on cushions, cross-legged on the living room floor, they passed around a beechwood talking stick decorated with feathers and charms, much as they had done for every major event of their lives. They had circled before Aniston’s weddings to Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux. They circled when babies were born, and when Aniston and Theroux had to put down their dog, Dolly. This time they set the circle’s intention: to celebrate how far they’ve come — and to toast Aniston’s next chapter.
女人们安全着陆,换了飞机,第二天晚上,她们聚集在一起,举行了一个她们已经做了30年的仪式:女神圈。她们在客厅的地板上盘腿围坐在坐垫上,传递一根装饰着羽毛和护身符的山毛榉手杖,她们生活中每当发生什么大事都会举行这个仪式。在安妮斯顿与布拉德·皮特(Brad Pitt)和贾斯汀·塞洛克斯(Justin Theroux)的婚礼前,她们就曾这样围成一圈。她们当中有人生孩子的时候,还有安妮斯顿和塞洛克斯的狗多莉需要安乐死的时候,她们也是这样围成一圈。这一次她们举办女神圈,是为了庆祝她们已经取得的成就,并为安妮斯顿的下一个新篇章喝彩。
“It’s so weird. There’s so much doom around that number,” Aniston said of 50, noting that the New Yorker in her (she spent most of her childhood on the Upper West Side) was slightly horrified at the thought of the term “goddess circle” appearing in a story about her. “Should we just call it a ‘circle’?” she asked.
“这太奇怪了。这个数字笼罩着太多厄运,”安妮斯顿在谈到她的50岁年龄时说,她说,她内心深处的那个纽约客(她童年大部分时间都在上西区度过)一想到“女神圈”这个词出现在有关她的文章里,就会有点害怕。“我们就管它叫‘圈子’行不行?”她问道。
We were sitting in the kitchen of her sunny, midcentury Bel-Air home, on a Tuesday afternoon in late August. She was warm and radiant, which is how glossy magazines often describe her, and also thoughtful, inquisitive and self-deprecating, which is not.
8月下旬的一个周二下午,在她位于贝莱尔的上世纪中叶风格的家中,我们在厨房聊了起来。她热情而容光焕发,时尚杂志经常用这样的词来描述她,还有体贴、好打听以及自贬——这并不属实。
She asked about the meaning of my tattoo, which led to a conversation about my dog, which led her to ask Siri, “Hey Siri, what does a cockapoo look like?” (“I’m like a weird dog person, it turns out, like a dog lady,” she said, running her hand through her dog Clyde’s fresh haircut.) She is surprisingly unguarded for someone for whom the tiniest kernel of news can transform into a thousand stories.
她问我,我的纹身是什么意思,于是聊起了我的狗,然后她问Siri,“嘿,Siri,可卡贵宾犬长什么样?”(“我就一个怪兮兮的爱狗人士,一个养狗的怪女人,”她一边说,一边抚摸着她的狗克莱德刚剪好的毛。)令人惊讶的是,她身上哪怕最小的一点新闻都能转化成千百个故事,她却显得毫不戒备。
But about that age thing: “I’m entering into what I feel is one of the most creatively fulfilling periods of my life,” she said. “Seriously,” she continued, pausing to knock on her wooden coffee table. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I feel like it’s just about to really bloom.”
但是关于年龄问题,她说:“我正进入人生中创作上最充实的时期之一,”她说。“真的,”她停下来敲了敲她的木咖啡桌,接着说。“我做这件事已经有30年了,我觉得真要开花结果了。”
This is the kind of thing actors say all the time in interviews. But in this case, it feels like more than a platitude.
这是演员们在采访中经常说的话。但在这里,感觉并非只是老调重弹。
Since “Friends” ended, Aniston has had critical success in smaller independent films, mixed reviews for mainstream movies, a lot of product endorsements, a couple of outright flops. But nothing has clicked quite like Rachel Green, the beloved runaway bride she played on “Friends.” She’s spent 15 years taking parts that had the potential to get her past that iconic role, that haircut, that “cloak of Rachel,” as she once put it — but they didn’t deliver. Perhaps the only way to do that may be to return to the medium that made her famous.
自从《老友记》完结后,安妮斯顿在一些小制作独立电影中的表现获得了好评,在主流电影中的表现褒贬不一,她获得了很多产品代言,还有几部彻底的失败之作。但没有比她在《老友记》中饰演的落跑新娘瑞秋·格林(Rachel Green)更受欢迎的角色了。她花了的时间饰演各种角色,只要能让她超越那个标志性角色、那个发型、那个她所谓的“瑞秋斗篷”——但它们都没能做到。也许唯一的办法就是回归那个让她成名的媒介。
So come Nov. 1, she’ll have a homecoming of sorts as the star of Apple’s “The Morning Show” — a big-budget drama set behind the scenes of a news show that looks a whole lot like “Today.” Aniston plays Alex Levy, a serious morning anchor whose personal life is complicated and professional life is more so, compounded by the sudden firing of her longtime co-host (played by Steve Carell) for sexual misconduct.
所以在11月1日,她将作为苹果的《早间新闻》(The Morning Show)的主演回归,这是一部大制作的电视剧,背景是一个看起来很像《今日秀》(Today)的新闻节目。安妮斯顿饰演的亚历克斯·利维(Alex Levy)是个严肃的早间新闻主播,她的个人生活很复杂,职业生活更是如此。更糟糕的是,她的长期搭档(史蒂夫·卡瑞尔[Steve Carell]饰演)因性行为不端而被突然解雇。
For Apple, the show represents the shiniest bauble in its launch slate as it attempts to challenge the likes of Netflix with a streaming service of its own — and among the first shows to hang its premise on #MeToo.
苹果正试图用自己的流媒体服务挑战Netflix等公司,这部剧是它推出的作品中最引人瞩目的一部,也是第一批以“#MeToo”(我也是)为背景的电视剧之一。
For Aniston, who is the spine of the show as both a lead and an executive producer, it’s the chance to dig into a more sophisticated dramatic role that, as she put it, has everything: “children, guilt, power struggle, being a woman in the industry, going through a divorce, publicly going through a divorce, feeling alienated, being just a little bit of a screw-up.”
安妮斯顿是这部剧的主脑,既饰演主角,也是执行制片人,它让她得以深入一个更复杂的戏剧性角色,正如她所说的,这个角色身上有各种各样的东西:“孩子、内疚、权力斗争、身为行业内的女性、正在闹离婚、正在公众注视下闹离婚、感觉被疏远、觉得自己有点失败。”
It’s a role that is asking her to draw on more of her personal life than ever before. And it may also be her best chance to finally get the world to see her as an actor, not just a star.
这个角色要求她比以往更多地利用自己的私人生活。这也可能是她最好的机会,终于可以让全世界看到,她是一个演员,而不仅仅是一个明星。
‘We basically just started over’
“我们基本上就是重新开始”
“The Morning Show” didn’t begin as a #MeToo story.
《早间新闻》一开始并不是一个“#我也是”故事。
Three years ago, when Aniston told Michael Ellenberg, a former executive at HBO who oversaw “Game of Thrones” and “The Leftovers,” that “television is not not an option for me,” Matt Lauer was still delivering the morning news and Harvey Weinstein was gunning for Oscars. “I said to him, ‘I just want to be a part of something great, I don’t care where it lands,’” Aniston recalled. “Because God knows, the movies have been great and they’ve been horrible, so you just don’t know.”
三年前,安妮斯顿告诉前HBO高管、《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)和《守望先锋》(The Leftovers)的监制迈克尔·艾伦伯格(Michael Ellenberg),“电视对我来说不是一个选项”,当时马特·劳尔(Matt Lauer)还在播报早间新闻,哈维·韦恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)正在为奥斯卡做准备。“我对他说,‘我只想参与一个伟大的事情,我不在乎有什么结果,’”安妮斯顿回忆。“因为天知道,有的电影太棒了,有的电影太可怕了,你根本不知道。”
When Ellenberg later phoned Aniston to tell her he’d acquired rights to “Top of the Morning,” a nonfiction book by the media reporter Brian Stelter that delves into the drama-filled world of morning television — and had also spoken to Reese Witherspoon, with whom he worked on “Big Little Lies” — the women immediately called each other.
后来艾伦伯格打电话给安妮斯顿,告诉她,他会获得《清晨之巅》(Top of the Morning)的改编权,这是媒体记者布莱恩·斯特尔特(Brian Stelter)写的一本非虚构作品,深入探究了早晨电视节目的戏剧性世界——而且他还联系了他在《大小谎言》(Big Little Lies)里合作过的瑞茜·威瑟斯彭(Reese Witherspoon)——二女一拍即合。
“We were so psyched,” said Witherspoon, who has known Aniston since they played sisters on “Friends.” She noted that the two had wanted to work together for some time, but that it was rare to have “two very, fully fleshed out female leads in one project.
“我们太激动了,”威瑟斯彭说,她和安妮斯顿是在《老友记》中扮演姐妹时认识的。她说两人早就想要再次合作,但是“在一个项目中有两个形象丰满的女性领导者”,这种情况很少见。
Aniston signed on to play Alex, a morning host akin to Ann Curry, who must traverse the cutthroat, ego-filled world of TV news as a woman in her 40s who executives declare is past her prime. She collides with Witherspoon’s character, a brash, younger field reporter who may be gunning for her job or could become her best friend, we aren’t yet sure.
安妮斯顿签约出演亚历克斯,一位类似于安·库里(Ann Curry)的早间节目主持人,她必须在竞争激烈、人人自高自大的电视新闻世界中穿梭,作为一名40多岁的女性,高管们宣布她已经过了黄金时期。她与威瑟斯彭饰演的角色发生了冲突。威瑟斯彭是一名鲁莽、年轻的外场记者,可能是想抢她的工作,也可能会成为她最好的朋友,我们还不确定。
Apple bought the show in a bidding war and ordered up two seasons. If the people who brought you the iPod were going to compete with Netflix and Hulu, Aniston and Witherspoon — who also serve as executive producers — seemed like a pretty good bet. “I just felt like this was exactly what we were looking for,” said Eddy Cue, a senior vice president at Apple overseeing the new service, who declined to name the price the company paid for the show but acknowledged that the draw of luring Aniston back to TV added to the appeal.
苹果在一场竞价战中买下了这档节目,并订购了两季。如果说为你带来iPod的那些人要跟Netflix和Hulu竞争,那安妮斯顿和威瑟斯彭——她们还同时担任执行制片人——看起来是很不错的赌注。“我就是觉得这正是我们要找的,”负责这项新服务的苹果高级副总裁艾迪·库伊(Eddy Cue)说,他拒绝透露公司为节目支付的价格,但坦言吸引安妮斯顿重回电视增加了节目的吸引力。
But then Weinstein happened. Charlie Rose was canceled. Matt Lauer was fired from “Today.” “And we basically just started over,” Witherspoon said. “We had to.”
但接着韦恩斯坦的事发生了。查理·罗斯(Charlie Rose)停播。马特·劳尔(Matt Lauer)被《今日秀》解雇。“我们基本上就是重新开始,”威瑟斯彭说。“没办法。”
Kerry Ehrin, a creator of the A&E series “Bates Motel,” was brought in to write a new script, replacing the original showrunner. The updated premise: Alex’s longtime co-host is fired after news of his behavior on the job (and in his dressing room) becomes public, throwing the show and her career into chaos.
A&E剧目《贝茨旅馆》(Bates Motel)的编剧凯瑞·依云(Kerry Ehrin)应邀写新剧本,取代了原先的节目统筹。新版故事背景:亚历克斯的老搭档主播在他在岗位上(以及更衣室里)的行为公开后被解雇,让节目和她的职业生涯卷入漩涡。
Carell would be cast to play the disgraced anchor — whom Aniston described as a kind of lovable, cocky narcissist who, like so many powerful men before him, “just thinks everybody wants to sleep with him.” Witherspoon’s character would be positioned as a potential replacement to fill his now open anchor chair. “The Morning Show” would still tackle gender and ageism, but also tell a more complicated story of what happens when an idol falls. What does it mean for his unknowing co-workers and friends, like Alex? His ability to seek redemption? And, without knowing exactly of what he’s accused, whose side should we be on?
卡瑞尔会被选定扮演这个声名狼藉的主播——安妮斯顿形容他是某种可爱却自大又自恋的家伙,和他之前的很多权势男性一样,“就以为人人都想和他上床。”威瑟斯彭的角色会定位在填补现空缺的主播位置的候选。《早间新闻》还会探讨性别和年龄歧视的问题,但也会讲述偶像倒下后会发生什么的复杂故事。这对他那些不知情的同事和朋友意味着什么,比如亚历克斯?对他寻求救赎的能力又意味着什么?以及不知道他究竟被指控了什么,该站在哪一边?
The ‘garage band days’
“车库乐队时光”
Now is the point in many of these interviews when the reporter asks the subject if she, too, has a #MeToo story.
接下来是在很多这些采访中会涉及的一点,记者会问采访对象,她是否也有“#我也是”故事。
Aniston says she does not, though she has certainly experienced her share of sexism in 30 years in the business.
安妮斯顿说她没有,虽然从业30年,她无疑也有过自己的性别歧视经历。
“Agents,” she began, ticking off a list. “Studios. Finding out what this actor made versus that actor made.”
“经纪人,”她开始举例。“片厂。得知这个那个男演员拿了什么样的薪水。”
It’s our second meeting at her vast, modernist home, and this time we’re joined by Kristin Hahn, Aniston’s best friend of three decades and producing partner of two, who is also an executive producer on “The Morning Show.” The duo reflected on what it was like when they began in Hahn’s garage in Ojai, California, 18 years ago (“We call them the garage band days,” Aniston said) to try to make movies.
这是我们第二次在她这座巨大的现代主义风格宅邸见面,这一次克里斯汀·哈恩(Kristin Hahn)加入了我们,她是安妮斯顿30年的好朋友、的制片搭档,也在《晨间直播秀》担任执行制片。俩人回顾了前在加州奥海镇哈恩的车库里开始尝试做电影的情景(安妮斯顿说,“我们管那时候叫车库乐队时光”)。
“It was so much harder …” began Hahn.
“那时要难得多……”哈恩先说。
“ … to get our phone calls taken,” finished Aniston.
“……让别人接我们的电话,”安妮斯顿接着说。
“Now actors are taken more seriously as producers,” Hahn continued. “But when we started, even though Jen had been on a TV series for eight years, it was still a little like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute.’”
“如今演员们会被当作制片人认真对待,”哈恩继续说。“但我们开始那会儿,即便詹已经演了八年电视剧,感觉还是有点像,‘噢,不错嘛。’”
It was there in that garage that Hahn and Aniston, with Pitt, co-founded the production company Plan B, which was then called Bloc Productions, a name that had come to Aniston during a game of Scrabble, she said. They developed “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “A Mighty Heart” and “The Departed,” on which Hahn was an executive producer.
正是在那间车库里,哈恩、安妮斯顿和皮特合作创办了B计划娱乐(Plan B)制作公司,后称为布洛克制片公司(Bloc Productions),安妮斯顿说她是在玩Scrabble拼字游戏时想出了这个名字。他们推出了《时间旅行者的妻子》(The Time Traveler’s Wife)、《坚强的心》(A Mighty Heart)、《无间道风云》(The Departed),哈恩在其中担任执行制片。
When Aniston and Pitt’s marriage ended, Aniston and Hahn decided they would be the ones to leave the company: “It was the symbolic equivalent of, ‘I’ll move out of the house,’” said Hahn. Plan B went on to develop the Oscar-winning films “12 Years a Slave” and “Moonlight,” while Aniston and Hahn formed their own company, Echo Films, as a side project when Hahn wasn’t writing — she wrote the screenplay for the Netflix movie “Dumplin’” — and Aniston wasn’t acting.
安妮斯顿和皮特的婚姻告终时,安妮斯顿和哈恩决定她们离开公司:“相当于代表‘我要搬出去住,’”哈恩说。B计划娱乐后来又推出奥斯卡获奖影片《为奴十二年》(12 Years a Slave)和《月光男孩》(Moonlight),安妮斯顿和哈恩则成立了她们自己的公司回声影业(Echo Films),作为哈恩写剧本——她是Netflix电影《饺子公主》(Dumplin)的编剧——安妮斯顿演戏之余的项目。
“Our mission statement was, Tell strong stories about strong women,” Aniston said. “Flawed, complicated, messy. ’Cause that wasn’t happening.” (Currently in development: “First Ladies,” a political comedy for Netflix in which Aniston will play the first lesbian president opposite Tig Notaro, and “The Goree Girls,” a project about one of the first all-female country bands.)
“我们的宗旨是,讲述坚强女性的坚强故事,”安妮斯顿说。“有缺陷的、复杂的、一团糟的故事。因为还没有这样的故事。”(目前在制作的有:Netflix的政治喜剧《第一夫人们》[First Ladies],安妮斯顿将在其中扮演首位女同总统,提格·诺特罗[Tig Notaro]演对手戏,以及关于最早的纯女性乡村乐队之一的《格雷女子乐团》[The Goree Girls]。)
‘There’s a similarity to my life’
“和我的生活有相似之处”
You could say that the story of Alex Levy is also the story of Jennifer Aniston: one of being underestimated and overexposed, known for a thing that may or may not have anything in common with who you actually are, trying to reassert control over your narrative.
你可以说亚历克斯·利维的故事也是詹妮弗·安妮斯顿自己的故事:一个被低估又被过度曝光的人,以一种与你的真实自我可能有、可能没有共通点的东西出名,奋力想要重新掌控关于自己的叙事。
“Jen has lived in the public eye for so long,” said Ellenberg. To play the role of Alex, he says, “she’s drawing on real stuff in her life.”
“詹在公众视野中生活了很长时间,”艾伦伯格说。他表示,出演亚历克斯的角色,“她会利用自己生活中真实的东西。”
Alex, who is declared by her male boss to have passed her “sell-by date.” Alex, whose smooth smile appears on billboards across the city but whose life at home is more complicated. Alex, who the world feels they know intimately, personally, but are nowhere near acquainted with.
被男老板宣称已过“巅峰期”的亚历克斯。光鲜的笑脸出现在全市各处的广告牌上,家中生活却颇为复杂的亚历克斯。人人都觉得亲切熟知,实则一无所知的亚历克斯。
“There’s a similarity to my life,” Aniston acknowledged. “I relate in ways of feeling like, when you don’t want to be seen, and you don’t want to go out of the house, and you want to just scream, and you don’t want to walk on a red carpet. I don’t want to stand behind a podium, I don’t want to have my photograph taken, I want to just cry today. You know?”
“这和我的生活有相似之处,”安妮斯顿坦陈。“我感同身受的地方有,当你不想被看到,不想走出家门,只想尖叫发泄,以及不想走上红毯的时刻。我不想站在讲台后面,不想被拍照,我今天只想哭。你知道吗?”
I asked if she could have played this role at any other point in her life.
我问她是否本可以在人生其他时刻出演这个角色。
“No,” she said firmly. “I didn’t have the experience.”
“不,”她坚决地说。“我以前没有这种经历。”
“It’s taken time for me to get where I am and I put a lot of work into my craft,” Aniston said. “I’ve failed. I’ve succeeded. I’ve overcome. I’ve, you know, I’ve stayed around. I’m still here.”
“我花了很长时间才走到现在,也在自己的技艺上付出了很多努力,”安妮斯顿说。“我失败过。成功过。战胜过。我,你知道,我一直都在。我还在这里。”
That, in Hollywood anyway, is perhaps the most radical thing a woman can do.
至少在好莱坞,这可能是一个女人能做的最为激进的事了。
外媒读天下长按二维码 关注/进入