10 Actors Who Gave Two WILDLY Different Performances In The Same Year
8. Jennifer Aniston - Rumor Has It & Derailed
Though Jennifer Aniston is unquestionably best-known for her role as Rachel on Friends, and her movie career is largely defined by a glut of fizzy rom-coms, she's occasionally dipped her toe into more challenging and unexpected fare.
Case in point, within six weeks of one another in 2005, Aniston starred in two films of wildly different tones which in turn required her to give two markedly different performances.
On one hand, there's Rob Reiner's ultra-typical rom-com Rumor Has It, which didn't really ask Aniston to do anything but play her regularly charming self. But on the other, Aniston played the female lead in crime thriller Derailed. Because the genre leap wasn't enough of a surprise for audiences, it also turned out there was far, far more to her character than initially suggested.
Ultimately, it's clear that Aniston was cast in the Derailed role precisely because of her "good girl" image. Having her star in two entirely antithetical movies barely a month apart was basically a marketing masterstroke - not that it helped Rumor Has It recoup its gargantuan $70 million budget, mind.