Before auditioning for "Friends," Aniston was almost broke and spent her last $100 on a set of professional photos to help with her audition for the sitcom. This was her investment of a lifetime as she turned it into $200 Million.
Aniston is set to reprise her role in the upcoming HBO Max's "Friends" reunion. Her career skyrocketed in fame when she landed the role of Rachel Green on hit TV show "Friends." All six original cast members, including Aniston, will be paid a hefty $2.5 million for appearing in the special.
Also crowned as the World's Most Beautiful Woman in 2016 by People, she earned more than almost any other female actress in the world in 2017, only losing out to Emma Stone. Forbes also ranked her as the third highest-paid actress come 2018.
Aniston's career skyrocketed in fame when she landed the role of Rachel Green on hit TV show Friends.
The main cast members formally announced that they will reunite for the one-off show by sharing a photo on Instagram with the caption "It's happening...."
On Feb. 22, her Instagram post had had nearly 10 million likes and is on its way to eclipsing her first-ever Instagram photo last October.
After 26 years into its TV premiere, "Friends" is one of the most re-watched shows.
Aniston said it was difficult to land a role in a commercial, let alone a TV show. She recalled, "I worked at an ice cream place. And then, I waitressed for about two and a half years. All the while, I was auditioning . . . I couldn't even get a commercial."
She had a minor, uncredited role in the 1988 movie "Mac and Me," and eventually snagged her first major film role in 1993's "Leprechaun" before landing her iconic Rachel Green role in "Friends."
With over 236 episodes, the cast leads of the hit show all became household names.
Aniston also had a boost in her bank account through endorsement deals, earning $10 million per year from sponsorship deals and nearly $2 million per year from "Friends" syndication deals alone.
The sitcom actress has transitioned to a sought-after movie star until now.
By the end of "Friends" in 2004, Aniston and her co-stars each earned $1.25 million per episode. This has been largely unmatched by other popular TV casts even today.
While Aniston was acting in "Muddling Through," the show only did six episodes and the network did not think it was going to get picked up. She then auditioned for another role as a second option. Reading the "Friends" script, she said, "It was my contemporaries, it was New York City, it was funny, it was interesting, I'd never read anything like it."
Aniston was the world's fifth-highest-paid actress this 2020. She made an estimated $28 million before taxes between June 2018 and June 2019.
The "Friends" special will debut in May 2020, launching HBO Max, WarnerMedia's new streaming service.
All 10 seasons and 236 episodes of the iconic show, which was taken down on Netflix last year, will also be available through the service.
Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint clarified that the special will not be a new episode, but rather a retrospective episode featuring interviews with the prominent cast members.
