Jennifer Aniston has remained the most successfully employed of the Friends actors outside of television. The actress has mainly stuck to her comedy roots, but has also slowly been creeping into more dramatic territory as of late, and she just signed on to add another serious film to her resume. The actress will star in The Yellow Birds with Jack Huston. The movie is due out sometime next year, and will arrive with a fantastic cast.
The casting story broke on The Wrap. The Yellow Birds follows two young soldiers who meet and befriend each other in boot camp, and promise to look out for one another. But, as they get deeper and deeper into the Iraq war, their promise becomes harder to keep. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Kevin Powers, an Iraq war veteran who served in that country in 2004 and 2005. In addition to Aniston and Huston the film will also star Mud's Tye Sheridan, and Alden Ehrenreich of Beautiful Creatures
The novel was released in 2012 to critical acclaim, winning five major literary awards, including The Guardian First Book Award and The PEN/Hemingway Award. The book was also a finalist for the National Book Award, and lauded by The New York Times as one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2012. Kevin Powers helped adapt his book for the film.
Jack Huston has received notice of late for suddenly dropping out of The Crow reboot during pre-production in Wales because of a scheduling issue, leaving the production with a last minute scramble for a new star. The Boardwalk Empire actor has also had roles in Kill Your Darlings, as Jack Kerouac, and recently completed the Mr. Wickham role in the upcoming film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Jennifer Aniston has several movies on her plate in the next year. Along with The Yellow Birds, the actress is signed on for The Comedian, Mean Moms, and is currently filming Mother’s Day with Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, and a huge cast of other recognizable faces.
Aniston has done a mighty good job with her post-Friends career choices. Even though her movies, comedy or not, may not make a huge impact at the box office or critically, they have kept her in the minds of audiences and Hollywood decision makers enough for her to stay steadily employed. What’s interesting is that, for someone who was basically the girl on Friends she’s done a bang up job of becoming a reliable comedy star. I mean, let’s face it. Who made you laugh more on Friends, Rachel, Monica or Phoebe? If you think about it, that order is probably backwards.
I’m always glad when TV sitcom actors decide to ply their trade in something other than straight up comedy, though. Everyone has sides of themselves that need to be explored, and it stands to reason that someone known mostly for helping people laugh would want to see if audiences will accept them laying their bleeding heart out and putting it all on the line for a serious movie of epic proportions. Jennifer Aniston is probably on the right track, because you really can’t get more serious than a war drama.
