Jennifer Aniston opens up on 'maybe the hardest time of my life'

Jennifer Aniston said she underestimated the emotional toll of the Friends reunion. Photo / YouTube

Jennifer Aniston has opened up about the "hardest time" of her life in new in-depth profile in which she talked about media scrutiny, creative endeavours and personal challenges.

Aniston told the Hollywood Reporter that shooting the Friends reunion this year was more difficult than she had expected, in part because being surrounded by those old sets dredged up memories of what she was going through just as Friends was ending in 2004.

"Then you get [to the production for the reunion] and it's like, 'Oh, right, I hadn't thought about what was going on the last time I was actually here,'" she said.

"And it just took me by surprise because it was like, 'Hi, past, remember me? Remember how that sucked? You thought everything was in front of you and life was going to be just gorgeous and then you went through maybe the hardest time of your life?.' It was all very jarring and, of course, you've got cameras everywhere."

While Aniston didn't specifically mention what she was referring to, the timing of when Friends was wrapping up coincided with the lead-up to her official separation from then-husband Brad Pitt mere months later.

Pitt later married his Mr & Mrs Smith co-star Angelina Jolie amid speculation he had left Aniston for Jolie.

Aniston clarified that the difficult times she was referring to weren't related to career opportunities after the end of Friends – which she described as "nothing but blessed" – but her personal life.

"It was more personal stuff, I had expectations about that sort of shapeshifted, so to speak. That was what was jarring, that we all had an idea of what the future was going to be and we were going to go hunker down and focus on this or that and then it all just changed overnight, and that was it.

"But again, everything's a blessing if you're able to look at life's ups and downs in that way. And if it hadn't all happened, I would not be sitting here the woman that I am today."

She also said she had resolved to pour herself into a creative outlet instead of wallowing at home.

"It just happened to be with a movie called The Break-Up," she joked, referring to the film starring her and Vince Vaughn as a couple going through separation.

Aniston's popularity due to her 10-year run on Friends, as well as a successful film career that includes Cake, Marley & Me and Horrible Bosses, has made her one of the most high-profile actors of her generation, and that fame was only intensified by her marriage to, and divorce from, Pitt.

That has meant a lot of media attention on her private life.

"I used to take it all very personally – the pregnancy rumours and the whole, 'Oh she chose career over kids,' assumption," she told THR.

"It's like, 'you have no clue what's going on with me personally, medically, why I can't … can I have kids?'

"They don't know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty."