[TV Guide, 7/97]

Life is sweet for Jennifer Aniston - with a new movie ('Picture Perfect'), an adoring boyfriend, and, oh, yeah, a pretty great day job. By Johanna Schneller

It's 99 degrees in New York City, but when Jennifer Aniston opens the door to her Greenwich Village apartment, she looks as crisp as romaine lettuce. She's wearing an ankle-length green print sarong and a black tank top and cardigan, her hair is tied back, and tiny oval glasses frame her crystal-blue eyes. She leads the way through a living room beautifully appointed with antiques and fresh garden roses - "If you're going to rent a furnished apartment, rent it from a guy who owns an antique store," she says, laughing - and puts some quiet jazz on the CD player. On TV, as Friends' fizzy Rachel Green, Aniston is perpetually askew, clothes skidding off her shoulders, wisps of hair flying, as if champagne runs through her veins. In person, however, I'm the one melting on her ecru linen sofa, and she's the one soothing me with bottles of cold water and pats on the arm. Apparently I'm not the first person to turn into a puddle at Jennifer Aniston's feet.

"Jennifer is all about love," says her Friends costar Lisa Kudrow. "Whatever you're doing, whatever you're wearing, she loves it. If you hate your dress, she'll say, 'But wow, look at your hair!' She's good through and through, and that comes out."

About 30 million people agree. Many of them tune in to NBC's Friends (Thursdays, 8 P.M./ET) each week expressly to watch Aniston curl herself around a coffee cup. Aniston's character has evolved the farthest, from what series cocreator David Crane calls an "underdeveloped" princess-cum-coffee-waitress into an emotionally mature woman with a fabulous job at Bloomingdales. "Jennifer is wonderful at playing zany -- she's always pushing to do more physical comedy. But she can also break your heart," Crane says.

"When we filmed our breakup scene last season, it was so devastating that it caught us both by surprise," says David Schwimmer, who plays Rachel's ex-boyfriend Ross. "I was actually embarrassed by how long it took me to recover from the first take. Jennifer made it so real."

Now Aniston is building a thriving film career in her summers off. Last year she dipped her toe in the water with a small, well-received part in Ed Burns's ensemble film "She's the One." This summer she dives all the way in, starring in one big, juicy romantic comedy, "Picture Perfect" (it opens August 1), while shooting another, prestige director Nicholas Hytner's "The Object of My Affection."

Aniston's career moves appear canny -- she has made the transition to film more successfully than her Friends castmates, and each project has been a step up from the last. But Aniston insists it's all serendipity: "Someone is watching out for me, or something," she says. "I wish I could say that I had all these options mapped out and that I made these smart choices. But I was really just lucky."

Aniston, 28, appreciates her good fortune, but she is not ruffled by it. She wants to take life as it comes, to stay as cool as my bottle of Evian. She's unaware that she's about to fall apart, most charmingly. For now, Aniston is calm.

In "Picture Perfect," Aniston is Kate, an ambitious junior advertising executive just weary enough of being a good girl to be tempted by a bad guy (a co-worker, played by Kevin Bacon). To drive Bacon's character crazy and get ahead at the office, she lies about having a picture-perfect boyfriend (Jay Mohr, the rival agent to Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire"); complications ensue when she tries to make him real. Along the way, Kate faces the choices all young, gorgeous women face: work vs. love, a cad vs. a lamb, a glamorous lie vs. mundane truth.

"Jennifer exudes an extraordinary humanity, which you need to do this kind of comedy," says Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron, who directed "Picture Perfect." "No matter what kind of ridiculous or morally questionable things Kate does, you can always hear her heart beating."

Aniston's father, John (ex-Days of Our Lives villain Victor Kiriakis), gave her the script, written by his friend (and former Days of Our Lives colleague) Arleen Sorkin, and the movie was made on the strength of Aniston's interest. It was the first time Aniston realized she had that kind of clout. "When I told Jennifer that Kevin Bacon had signed on, she went, 'I can't act with Kevin Bacon! I love Kevin Bacon!'" says Caron. "She was so humble, so adorable."

Aniston identified with the movie's themes because she remembered what it was like to be "someone wanting to be different than who she was. Wanting to get out of a rut, and what do I have to do to make that happen?" After graduating from New YorkCity's High School for the Performing Arts in 1987, she wanted to act -- but she also regretted not going to college. "So I was taking classes at night in psychology, waitressing during the day, auditioning when I could. I was like, 'I've got to get out of here.'"

Suddenly a key turns in the front door, and in bounds Tate Donovan, Aniston's boyfriend of over a year, and their terrier, Enzo. Though Donovan is an actor (he starred in Fox's Partners in 1995-96 and is the voice of Hercules in the current Disney movie), he had never even seen Friends until mutual pals introduced him to Aniston. Despite their matching Irish Claddagh rings (coincidentally, they both bought one for each other's first anniversary present), and tabloid tales of his proposals ("That p----- me off," Aniston says. "Don't take that away from me!"), and Enzo, whom Donovan gave to Aniston last Valentine's Day, they maintain separate residences in L.A. and have only cohabited in New York for about a week.

Man and dog greet Aniston, then snuffle noisily around the apartment. Donovan lopes into the kitchen and bangs away on the taps, then pops out to the living room to say, "There's no water in this apartment."

"It's coming. They're reinstalling the water heater," says Aniston. "Uh, why don't I go into the dining room so you can have some privacy?"

"No, no, no, stay," Donovan says, wrapping his arms around Aniston from behind. "She's the most unbelievably great…actress. I was going to say, 'thing that ever happened to me,' but I was just trying to make it topical."

"Thanks, hon, that was great," Aniston says, peeling his arms away. "But I don't want to talk about my relationship, so.…"

"Why not? Oh, she's ashamed of me," says Donovan. "I'm more unabashedly in love with her, I guess." He mock-pouts.

"Tate!" she says. He skedaddles. "Oh, God, where was I?"

You wanted to act.…

"I wanted to be self-sufficient. I wanted to have something of my own that I loved to do," she says, instantly back on track. "So many of our parents and grandparents, the women especially, didn't have that. I was determined not to be chained to my home. I respect those people tremendously, but I know my mom [Nancy, a former model] would have been a happier person if she'd blossomed to her full potential. And you never get that time back. So I'm really trying to enjoy it. Can you imagine that feeling, to be 65 years old and to have missed whatever it is you've dreamed of?"

Has Aniston talked about this with her mother? "No. I accused her of it, as a bratty teenager. Shame on me. Who knew it was something that was really happening?"

Aniston is also, she says, just starting to talk to her father about his life (her parents divorced when she was 9, and she lived with her mom) -- for example, how his father, a Greek immigrant who owned a diner, worked from 5 A.M. to 1 A.M. every day. "My dad didn't know how to be a great dad. I was a clown, and always sort of getting into trouble in school, and he thought I was a failure and stupid. Whatever." Aniston heaves a sigh. "I know, How did he know that was going to be disruptive to me? But I started to doubt myself. The biggest gift he gave me was to say, 'I'm sorry I wasn't there.' He wasn't. He was bad. He wasn't a bad guy, but he was typical of his generation. Now he's a great dad."

Donovan ambles back in and slips a new CD into the multiple carriage. Aniston is instantly distracted. "There's definitely that feeling of -- oh, what was I going to say?"

"Love?" Donovan says, grinning cheesily.

"Yeah, love," Aniston says, shaking her head.

"That you have for me.…"

"I do not want to talk about my relationship!" Aniston wails.

"That fulfilled feeling…," Donovan continues dreamily. She forces him out of the room.

In "Picture Perfect," Kate can't resist the guy who will break her heart. Has Aniston suffered the same fate? "No, I like good guys. Tate's a good guy," she says. "I've been lucky that way. In high school I did go out with a guy" -- here she breaks off, laughing, because Donovan sticks his head back in -- "who was mysterious and weird but would be nice when he was with me. I thought I'd be able to change him. And if you can be the one woman who can do that, how awesome are you? But it never happened."

Donovan is now fully in the room. Aniston throws up her hands. How much have they told each other about their pasts? "I like to tell," she says. "You learned so much from those other people. It's half of who you are."

"On our first date, all we did was talk about our relationships," he says. (His most famous ex is Sandra Bullock; hers, Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz.)

She nods. "We were like a mirror of each other. I was with somebody who was very closed down, and everything was always great, never a problem. If there was something wrong, he would never talk about it. I like to get rid of it. Why dwell on it, build up resentment?"

So how are they different? "I'm a New York City girl, and he's a suburban Jersey boy," Aniston says.

"And she's -- oh, I shouldn't say this…," Donovan says.

"What? I'm what?" Aniston asks.

"She's a lot wealthier than I am." He guffaws. Aniston takes off her glasses and slams her face into her hands. (Each Friends regular now makes close to $100,000 per half-hour episode.) "In fact, she's a lot wealthier than most people," he continues blissfully. "You can actually be rich, and she'd still be wealthier." Do they plan to move in together in L.A. soon? Donovan starts to say yes, but Aniston blurts out, "No. NO."

"No?" he asks.

"We don't know, that's why I don't want to talk about it!" she says.

"OK. I'm going to wash the dishes. That I just washed," Donovan says. He backs into the kitchen. Aniston rubs the bridge of her nose. Her cardigan is crooked. Her hair is starting to tumble down.

I try one last big question: Is this -- career, boyfriend, dog, flowers -- what happiness looks like? "It's great," Aniston says slowly. "I never had an idea of what I wanted my life to be, like a picture I painted in my head. And your life doesn't stop happening to you. I wish I had more time to see my family, and I don't like all the tabloid stuff -- although the worst thing anybody said about me was that I had breast implants." She rolls her eyes. "Or that I was dating a wrestler."

A wrestler? "A married wrestler who wore a mask, called the Phantom. I never met a wrestler in my entire life." She pauses. "But I'm definitely happy, I must say. Yeah, I'm the happiest now." She suddenly becomes aware of the raucous choral music emanating from the CD player. "Oh, my God, we're listening to 'Hercules'!" she cries. "Tate!" She switches off my tape recorder and laughs and laughs and laughs. - Johanna Schneller