Jennifer Aniston: 'Not pregnant. Not engaged. Just happy with my life right now'

LOS ANGELES I am happy with my life right now because I am healthy and I am working, revealed the 42-year-old award-winning actress Jennifer Aniston when we met with her for her brainchild project, Five, a groundbreaking original movie which is an anthology of five short films exploring the impact of breast cancer on peoples lives.

I am happy because I am allowed to do what I love to do, she continued.

And we still look good naked! added Patricia Clarkson, who is one of the featured actresses in the movie.

I think that just about says it! remarked Jennifer, who then smiled.

We recently interviewed Jennifer, Patricia and Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love), another featured actress in the movie, for Five. Aside from Jennifer, the other directors include Alicia Keys, Demi Moore, Independent Spirit Award winner Patty Jenkins (Monster) and Penelope Spheeris (Waynes World).

Five highlights the experiences of each short films title character from the moment of diagnosis and its effects on the way women perceive themselves while searching for strength, comfort, medical breakthroughs and, ultimately, a cure.

Aside from Patricia and Jeanne, the other featured actors include Rosario Dawson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Bob Newhart, and Tony Shalhoub among others.

The five shorts include stories about Charlotte (directed by Demi), Cheyanne (directed by Penelope), Lili (directed by Alicia), Mia (directed by Jennifer), and Pearl (directed by Patty).

Five is close to the hearts of the actresses because they have had family or friends who have had breast cancer.

About a year ago, the idea of telling five stories, five short films that created an event of an evening about breast cancer was presented to me, Jennifer revealed. It seemed extremely difficult but we decided to do it. It was something that many of our friends and family have walked through and it just seemed like an extraordinary opportunity to do something really special.

As for the experience of directing,! Jennife r disclosed, This is the second time I have directed a short. Given the amount of time and the amount of days that we had to shoot it and the material we had, we were the only short that had prosthetics and wig caps. There were many things working against us in a way. But it was all just extremely fun in the challenge of it all.

It is something that I always felt very comfortable doing and I love actors. I like to be spoken to as an actor. I love it when a crew is working beautifully and I know that it starts at the top. You have to create a level of trust with everybody so that everybody knows and gets everybody excited about what they are a part of. We were excited taking in what the topic is. Everybody really loved being there and even on the hardest days, Patricia was such an extraordinary trooper.

As for having Jennifer as a director, Patricia said, It was an amazing experience. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences I had in my career and I have had a lot at this point because I am over 40. Seriously, I could never have done the film in four days without Jennifer. Never in a million years. We hit a stride. We hit a place. There was levity when we needed it. There was gravity when it was called for.

Jennifer has a beautiful way on the set. I have worked with many great directors. They are surprisingly ego-less and that is what is extraordinary. They are gorgeous and talented and they are who they are. But when they go on the set, something shifts and they become part of something much larger than themselves. It is very apparent and it was very beautiful.

Jeanne agreed. She said of working with Jennifer, Working with an actor as a director is sometimes the greatest thing because she is on film sets a lot. So she knows how she wants them, the dream set to run. The energy was just so great. As an actor, I always feel that I am in service to the director to bring her vision to fruition. Jennifers set was just lovely. So keep doing it Jennifer and do more. You should now! go bigg er. You have graduated now.

Jennifer shared with us what was the best feeling she had after doing the movie. The best feeling that I had was being able to know that this was something that we were faced, she said. We looked at a long road ahead of us and we ask ourselves, Can we achieve this? Can we accomplish something very special? And to stand here today and know that we have and that the amount of letters and people that have approached all of us who are cancer survivors, family members of cancer survivors or people they have lost to cancer and how moved and touched they have been.

A letter I just got the other day from a friend of mine who works in post-production who has lost her mother to breast cancer 15 years ago and shes yet to watch anything, movie or read an article that had anything to do with cancer because it was just too hard for her to even face it. After watching this movie, it cleared away so much debris that she feared facing and is so much lighter and grateful. She is now going to watch it again with her children. There are just so many people moved, informed, and inspired. That is the one thing you can hope to do. They took something wonderful away from it.

As for reports that she is engaged to her new beau, actor-director-screenwriter Justin Theoroux, Jennifer said, I have a list of things. No I am not engaged unless it is Joy Canal Street Jewelry. I am not getting married in any time in the near future that I am aware of. I am not pregnant. It is just I quit smoking so I have gained a couple of pounds. I think I have covered everything!

Formerly a Manila journalist, Los Angeles-based Janet Susan R. Nepales is a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

E-mail the writer at jrnepales_624@yahoo.com for your comments or questions.