Jennifer Aniston Joins Peter Bogdanovich's Broadway-Themed Film

Jennifer Aniston has officially signed on for Peter Bogdanovich's Broadway-themed movie SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAY, alongside Owen Wilson, The Hollywood Reporter has announced.

Click here to read the original report.

Formerly known as SQUIRRELS TO NUTS, Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten penned the script that follows a married Broadway director (Wilson) who helps a former prostitute become an actress. Red Granite Pictures is financing the film.

Aniston is set to play a therapist whose mother is completing a stint in rehab for alcoholism. The former FRIENDS actress joins Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Cybil Shepherd, Eugene Levy, and Kathryn Hahn for the comedy.

Production on SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAY is set to kick off this June in New York City. As of now, no theatrical release date has been set by the studio.

The actress is best known for her role as Rachel Green on the beloved sitcom FRIENDS. Aniston has also appeared in such films as THE BREAK-UP, HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU, THE BOUNTY HUNTER, and HORRIBLE BOSSES.

Peter Bogdanovich began directing plays Off-Broadway and in New York summer theater at just 20. He wrote a series of three monographs on Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock for the Museum of Modern Art and wrote a classic series of feature articles and profiles for Esquire, including a groundbreaking Humphrey Bogart tribute and definitive pieces on James Stewart, Jerry Lewis and John Ford.

In 1966, he began working in movies first as Roger Corman's assistant on The Wild Angels; within a year, Corman financed Bogdanovich's first film as director-writer-producer-actor with the cult classic Targets, starring Boris Karloff in his last great film role. In 1971, Bogdanovich commanded the attention of both critics and public with The Last Picture Show -- starring then-unknowns Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman -- a look at small-town Texan-American life in the early 1950s. The film, which was recently designated a National Treasure by The Library of Congress, earned eight Academy Award nominations, including for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Bogdanovich's 1972 film What's Up, Doc?, a romantic farce starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay. One year later, he recreated a memorable vision of rural 1930s America with Paper Moon, a Depression Era-tale about a pair of unlikely con artists. The film earned four Academy Award nominations, among numerous major honors, and nabbed a Supporting Actress Oscar for nine-year-old Tatum O'Neal (in her screen debut), the youngest performer ever to win an Academy Award.

His body of work over the past three decades has included the critically acclaimed version of Henry James' classic Daisy Miller; Saint Jack, starring Ben Gazzara and Denholm Elliot; They All Laughed, featuring Audrey Hepburn in her final starring role on screen; the Academy Award-winning Mask, starring Cher and Eric Stoltz; Noises Off, Michael Frayn's classic theater comedy, written for Steven Spielberg's company; Texasville, the sequel to The Last Picture Show; and The Cat's Meow, featuring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann and Jennifer Tilly.

More Articles by This Author...