Why Jennifer Aniston Turned Down Joining ‘SNL’

Jennifer Aniston has had an impeccable career, but the Friends staple passed on one major gig: the chance appear on Saturday Night Live. Aniston reflected on the moment in a recent interview  on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, and says the moment haunts her but its not something she necessarily regrets.

She recalled declining an offer to join Lorne Michaels’ NBC sketch comedy series in the early 1990s and says she declined because she was too self-righteousness. “I always thought I was such hot s—,” Aniston said, adding, “The story of that is all very confusing.” 

Aniston met with Michaels in New York when her longtime friend and collaborator  Adam Sandler was already a cast member on the show. “I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude of ‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show,’” Aniston remembered. She said, at the time she was approached, SNL was “a very male-dominated” show. “I would love to be here if it was in the Gilda Radner day,” she recalled of what she said to Michaels. “I mean, this is the brain that semi-remembers things that are back that far. I can’t remember, but I remember Friends then happened. And that’s where I went.”

This isn’t her first time speaking about snubbing SNL. In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she said she’d heard about the work environment and didn’t think it was a good fit. “I was so young and dumb and I went into Lorne’s office and I was like, ‘I hear women are not respected on this show.’ I don’t remember exactly what I said next, but it was something like, ‘I would prefer if it were like the days of Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin.’ I mean, it was such a boys’ club back then, but who the f— was I to be saying this to Lorne Michaels?!” she said

She went on to host the show in 199 and 2004. She’s also made cameo appearances.