Jennifer Aniston was “immediately intrigued” when she was approached to star in the forthcoming adaptation of Jennette McCurdy’s memoir.
The Morning Show star gushed about her upcoming leading role in the Apple TV+ series I’m Glad My Mom Died, which is inspired by McCurdy’s book about her relationship with her abusive mother, in a Friday interview with People. Going into filming for the project, Aniston admitted that she and the former iCarly actress have a shared experience.
“We have a lot in common,” Aniston told the outlet of her and McCurdy. “We had very similar moms.”
“When it came across my desk as an option, an offer to play this character and work with Jennette and Sharon Horgan and LuckyChap, I was pretty much immediately intrigued and flattered and excited,” Aniston added. “It’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be pretty great to start shooting it.”
Per the series logline, I’m Glad My Mom Died will chronicle “the codependent relationship between an 18-year-old actress in a hit kids’ show, and her narcissistic mom who relishes in her identity as a starlet’s mother.” Aniston will star as the mother.
The Emmy winner has opened up about her difficult relationship with her mother, Nancy Dow, in the past. During a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aniston said her mom was “very critical of me.”
“She was critical. She was very critical of me. Because she was a model, she was gorgeous, stunning. I wasn’t. I never was. I honestly still don’t think of myself in that sort of light, which is fine,” she said. “She was also very unforgiving. She would hold grudges that I just found so petty.”
Of McCurdy’s memoir, Aniston praised it as being “so beautifully written.”
“The fact that she’s the young woman that she is, having lived that life, is nothing short of remarkable,” she added of McCurdy, who will serve as a co-showrunner of the Apple TV+ series alongside Ari Katcher. Aside from starring in the project, Aniston will also serve as an executive producer.
