Jennifer Aniston Is Happy, Isn’t That Enough?

Jennifer Aniston, the Friends star we fell in love with almost a quarter of a century ago, has so many new projects in the works, she has zero time for tabloid gossip. Still, 20-year-old rumors still circulate weekly at supermarket news stands. Headlines shouting that Aniston is pregnant with her 400th baby and desperate to get back together with her ex (ya know, that guy, Brad Pitt), fall deaf on the ears of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

“We live in a society that messages women: By this age, you should be married; by this age, you should have children. That’s a fairy tale. That’s the mold we’re slowly trying to break out of.” Aniston told ELLE Magazine.

And that is what Aniston, 49, is doing with her career and future projects- breaking the mold. The mold that people think actress of a certain age should fit, what women should look like, or what they should do with their lives.

America’s Sweetheart shows no signs of stopping. In 2017, Aniston was ranked second on Forbes’ list of highest paid actresses. Her new film Dumplin’ is out now on Netflix and in select theaters as well as many other projects in the works- one that stars Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell and another about the first lesbian president of the United States (that latter stars comedian Tig Notaro).

That amount of success is sure to bring some happiness along with it, but it might not look like the happiness you want for the actress. “Why do we want a happy ending? How about just a happy existence? A happy process? We’re all in process constantly,” Aniston tells Elle. “What quantifies happiness in someone’s life isn’t the ideal that was created in the ’50s. It’s not like you hear that narrative about any men.”

Aniston doesn’t have time for this type of thinking. “That’s part of sexism—it’s always the woman who’s scorned and heartbroken and a spinster. It’s never the opposite. The unfortunate thing is, a lot of it comes from women,” she explains to ELLE. “Maybe those are women who haven’t figured out that they have the power, that they have the ability to achieve a sense of inner happiness.”