Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon Talk About Their Careers, the Future, and AI: “It’s here to stay, so just get used to it.”

It has been a while since the young Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon appeared together as sisters Rachel and Jill Green in the popular sitcom Friends. Aniston, who played Rachel, was a star in the series, while Witherspoon appeared in the series in a recurring role in Season 6. Their careers have taken very different paths since then, but the two actresses have since reunited for the drama series The Morning Show on Apple, where they play the main roles.

Recently, the two of them sat down for a PaleyFest conversation, in which they opened up about their careers and the future of movies and television, as well as provided us with some interesting thoughts on the use of AI in filmmaking. Here is what the two of them said.

At one point in the conversation, Witherspoon began to wonder about the future of filmmaking, which is now very different from when she and Jennifer Anniston began and asked a very interesting question, which Anniston also commented on:

Witherspoon: “Are careers like ours possible ever again? Are there opportunities for people to really emerge as a star? How do you know with no data transparency? How do we even know if something did well or didn’t do right? (…) And it’s tough as an actor — how do you negotiate? How does a producer? How do you market? If you don’t know where you sit in a landscape, how do you value something? There’s real amounts of data too, they’ve got a lock on it. They don’t want you to have the advantage, and it’s tough.”

Anniston: “We did start in this industry in a time when it was so glamorous and so fun, and [you would] just to go on auditions and auditions and just hope that you get it. And if you get that Movie of the Week and then hope you get that little guest star on Quantum Leap. When it was so simple, and now it is becoming so… it’s too much sometimes.”

Source: THR

Witherspoon also commented on how much streaming has influenced the current market and what it means for the future:

“Streaming was like the biggest thing for three to four years, and there was a never-ending constant smash for content, and like literally we could sell anything. What I’m seeing right now, I think from the buying and selling landscape side of it, is that probably part of the strike was a reset for these studios that are not profitable — the streaming services — and an opportunity for them to resize, rework and cut costs. So we’re going to probably see less stuff, which is probably good, right? It was just chaos. It was a flea market. We can slow down a little bit. But there’s going to be a more intention around it, and it’s gonna be a little bit harder.”

Source: THR

In the end, Witherspoon also gave her honest opinion on AI in filmmaking, and you might be surprised to find out that she is quite enthusiastic about the opportunities that might arise from the proper use of AI:

“It’s here to stay, so just get used to it. And I think AI is not coming for your job; people who know how to use AI are coming for your job. So learn about it. It should be a tool upon which we lay our own creativity, our own humanity and our own ethics. That’s a whole conversation — for women and people of color and people who are othered sometimes in those developmental spaces really need to get in there… let’s not be scared of it, let’s dive in.”

Source: THR

It was definitely interesting to hear the opinions of these two actresses, especially since they discussed some important questions related to the modern-day filmmaking industry.

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