Friends and family

Rachel has been the best thing in my life - and probably the worst thing, in that I feel like I've had this shadow,' says Jennifer Aniston as the clock ticks down to the filming of the final episodes of

Indeed she has. These attempts date back at least eight years, as if Aniston has always been plotting her post-Friends course. Clearly, no one imagined the programme would last as long as it has, but her strategy is now paying off in spades.

While giving audiences what they expected with such romantic comedy fare as Picture Perfect, She's The One and The Object Of My Affection, she's also taken smaller roles as a waitress in the very warped cult hit Office Space, a jilted girlfriend in Rock Star and she took a big risk by playing a plain (well, as plain as Aniston can get) small-town wife in meltdown in the exceptionally bittersweet The Good Girl. The gamble paid off. Critical plaudits rolled in while the industry finally got the message that there was more to Aniston than meets the eye. Comedy, though, remains both her forte and a genre within which she is most comfortable.

Her 2003 blockbuster Bruce Almighty - in which she played Jim Carrey's long-suffering lover - is, however, a very different beast from this year's model, Along Came Polly. This time Aniston's partner is Ben Stiller, whom she's known since he made a guest appearance on Friends. 'A comedian like Jim Carrey is brilliant on his own, but Ben comes from a different place, from the reality of the situation and that's what makes him so funny,' she enthuses. 'It's all about the quiet moments, the beats.'

Aniston is a revelation as Polly, an eccentric bohemian who pops up at the right time in the life of ex-school mate Reuben [Stiller], just back from his abortive Hawaii honeymoon where he caught his wife in flagrante delicto with her scuba instructor. He's immediately captivated by Polly.

Aniston makes her vulnerable, heartbreaking and hilarious all at once.

'I love Polly, I really do,' Aniston beams. And you believe her. She doesn't gush, but establishes eye contact and exudes warmth. Conversation is easy and chatty. If she should decide to demur on a question, it's because she can't believe anyone seriously needs to know what she got her husband for his 40th birthday. Even if the husband in question is Brad Pitt.

She's also utterly beautiful. Her face is tanned and glowing, but her cosmetic armoury is limited to a lick of mascara and a coat of lip gloss. Her clothes are a black shirt and dark blue jeans. She doesn't look this good in the movie.

She laughs: 'When I first saw it, one of the first things I thought was, "Oh God, I don't look very good." But I was supposed to look like I maybe stink a bit. But what I do is not all about looking good. People who want to look good all the time, they're a different kind of actor.'

It doesn't hurt Aniston that Hollywood badly wants her to succeed. Julia Roberts doesn't work much and Cameron Diaz can't be everywhere. There's certainly an opening for Aniston to become part of a hallowed triumvirate. She's worked long and hard for her success - since joining her school drama club aged 11, in fact. Later, she attended New York's Fame school, the High School Of The Performing Arts, inspired by her father John, a regular on the American daytime soap Days Of Our Lives since 1965.

Her parents divorced when she was nine. She remains close to John, but is still embroiled in a long-running feud with her mother, Nancy, who appeared on TV to talk in intimate detail about her newly famous daughter as Friends took off in 1996, and then published a tell-all book - From Mother And Daughter To Friends, A Memoir. Nancy was a conspicuously absent friend at Brad and Jennifer's July 2000 wedding.

Aniston's early CV could be that of any struggling New York actress - off-Broadway plays, waitressing, advertisements. She swore she'd never move to LA. But she did, and struggled some more, until her audition for a TV pilot then titled With Friends Like These. Her instincts were working overtime. She refused to audition for Monica, as suggested, and begged that she be allowed to read for Rachel Green. The rest, of course, is history.

History, must now give way to the future. But does A-list movie stardom mix with motherhood? 'I do want that chapter of my life to close and another to begin,' she confirms, adding that her new home has 'a children's wing'. And, yes, she'll protect her children's privacy. They won't endure what she occasionally has had to: 'I don't think you ever become used to it. The loss of your privacy is a big price to pay - that people feel they have every right to follow what your life is, from the moment you wake up until you go to bed.'

This new stage of her life is matched by a new home, an architectural Beverly Hills gem designed by Wallace Neff. She and Pitt gutted and redesigned the inside together, and Aniston plans on spending a lot of time inside its presumably high walls. Are they a totally cohesive design team? 'Not really,' Aniston muses. 'Our tastes are completely different. Brad's style is really modern and I find that cold. I have more old world taste. He calls it "stuffy grandma style". But we've melded the two together and it's worked really well. Building a home together has been like making our own world. It's a beautiful thing to do, very symbolic.'

No wonder she's ready to nest. 'Staying in is the new going out,' she grins. 'It's nice to invite your friends over, have dinner parties, play poker. Not that I can cook, but I'm planning on learning. And we have a great kitchen.'

And Aniston loves to eat. She even sent up her passion for Mexican food when she hosted the sketch show Saturday Night Live last month. She has a sense of humour about herself, but revealed her true self in the programme's final moments, sporting a T-shirt which proudly - and rather poignantly - read, 'I love Brad Pitt'. No matter what heights she's determined to scale professionally, there's no doubting what's most important in Jennifer Aniston's life.