Jennifer Aniston revisited past emotional breakdowns while making The Morning Show

Jennifer Aniston found playing a character who is hounded by the press and fed up with public life in The Morning Show very "cathartic".

The Friends actress opened up in an interview with the Los Angeles Times about her role as Alex Levy on Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, explaining she found playing a character who is hounded by the press and has her personal life picked apart by the public "cathartic".

"That show was 20 years of therapy wrapped into 10 episodes," she quipped. "There were times when I would read a scene and feel like a whole manhole cover was taken off my back."

One scene, in particular, saw Aniston's character break down on her way to an event that's being held in her honour, before pulling it together to not ruin her carefully-applied make-up.

"(It was) interesting for me to look at how I always have tried to normalise being fine and 'everything’s great, you know, this is all normal,' and then there are moments when you have your private breakdown," the 51-year-old reflected. "To actually look at it from an actor brain observing it and acknowledging it, I had to look at it as opposed to pretending it doesn’t exist."

Recalling her own, real-life breakdowns, Aniston added: "There have been moments - not to that level of hysteria - but moments of 'I don’t want to f**king go here,' 'I don’t want to walk out onto the carpet,' 'I don’t want to be seen,' 'I don’t want to be looked at and everyone’s going to be talking about me and judging me'... that’s real... I just loved being able to walk into it and lean into it and not be ashamed of it."

In addition to acting in the series, Aniston co-produced The Morning Show with her co-star Reese Witherspoon.

Aniston is currently nominated for a leading actress Emmy for her role. The winners are announced on 20 September.