Jennifer Aniston On How Her Mom on 'Friends' Inspired Her Work in a Hospital

Actress Jennifer Aniston's journey to being the superstar she is today is literally no secret to anyone at all and while her work over the years may have a larger set of fans than haters. But when we talk about the iconic sitcom, Friends, hardly anyone can deny that the show is what made Aniston and the rest of the five cast members the mammoth stars they are today.

In a recent conversation with Variety, when Aniston's Rachel Green on the show needed someone to play her mother, it was Aniston herself who suggested Marlo Thomas' name. “Her father, John Aniston, and I had done a play together before Jennifer was born,” Thomas recalls. “We played brother and sister. When I got the call to play Jennifer’s mother, I said, ‘That’s funny — I already played her aunt!’ We had a great time. She was very excited to have me there, because she’d remembered gifts I’d sent her and her brother when she was small.”

Owing to this reunion of sorts, Thomas would go on to ask Aniston to start appearing in public service announcements for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which provides free medical care to children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The doctors and nurses at St. Jude treat 8,000 patients a year from all 50 states, with housing available to them and their families at no charge. Since 2006, Aniston has filmed an annual PSA for St. Jude, sitting next to the young patients as she talks with them and asks the public to donate money to the nonprofit.

“I started doing everything I could, meeting the children, and they’re these little heroes,” Aniston says. “I remember one year the little girl kept calling it her ‘owies,’ her little tumors, because they wouldn’t say the word ‘cancer’ in front of her. It’s the hardest day of the year and the greatest day of the year, because they allow you to put it all into perspective. You see these little miracles, these heroes, walking through something that no child should ever have to be walking through.”

“I stay in contact with the families sometimes,” Aniston says. “Most of these kids are from places that don’t have the opportunities, and necessarily income, that some families have the good fortune of having. And it’s a beautiful environment. Every year, I get this birthday card that St. Jude makes with all their faces on it. And each of them signs it. They are treated like the angels that they are.”