by Paul Fischer

Jennifer Aniston, who has just received her first Emmy nomination for Lead Actress as Friends' Rachel Green [her third nomination overall], embarks on a very different journey to that of her television alter ego in the low-budget comedy/drama The Good Girl. Aniston stars as Justine, a woman who is feeling constrained by her life. Her husband, Phil (John C. Riley), is a house painter who spends the majority of his time smoking marijuana with his friend Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). Longing for something more in her life, Justine becomes involved with a younger co-worker named Tom (Jake Gyllenhall), but because of his fascination with "The Catcher in the Rye," he likes to be called Holden. Her new sense of freedom and release are threatened when a co-worker dies, and when Bubba learns of her infidelity.

Aniston admits that she was concerned, "as to whether or not people accept you or buy it." After all, her Justine is an essentially tragic, lonely character, trapped in a loveless marriage in small town USA. Justine is as far removed from Rachel as you can get, and Aniston had no compunction in stepping up to the challenge. She was drawn to the material, she explains, because "the script was kind of all right there, you know?" Despite Aniston's frenetic television schedule, the actress found the time to do the film. "It all happened within a two hour period of time. I got the call about this movie, then got the script, read it and loved it. I thought it was heartbreaking, beautiful and subtle," the actress says, laughingly adding that "I just truly did think they made a mistake in calling me," referring to the shoot as "one of those great experiences."

Aniston's own life seems far removed from the working-class, repressive lifestyle in which she finds herself in The Good Girl, the second feature from director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White, the creative team behind the quirky Chuck & Buck. An actress who tries to identify with her characters, Aniston's relationship with Justine was closer than one might imagine. "I mean like anything, you know, I dropped from my life, like we do and there were elements of my upbringing and my family that I could draw on", Aniston explains. "I don't mean that I grew up in that kind of a neighbourhood and worked in that kind of a store, but just the elements of loneliness, sadness and depression which I think we have all come across, are what we can all relate to. It is sort of universal whether you live in a small town in Texas or in a big city, and you're loaded with money; you are looking at those emotions and those personal dilemmas are universal." Aniston refused to divulge what she drew from within herself tapping into those bear emotions ["Oh, that's my own, my private stuff."], but concedes that it was still tough for the actress to reach the kinds of emotional levels the character goes through. "It's the hardest thing that I have ever done. It was like working a muscle that hasn't been worked and it felt very unfamiliar. I don't mean I resisted, like 'I'm not going to do that' but meaning it felt just uncomfortable." So she just gave herself over to director Miguel Arteta. "We made a deal. It was like: Don't let me do this, and he said, well you have to let me do this. And I said OK."

Part of what she did do, was engage in some fairly steamy love scenes with co-star Jake Gyllenhall. Asked how uncomfortable husband Brad Pitt felt in watching his wife being intimate