Jennifer Aniston on How #MeToo Inspired The Concept of 'The Morning Show'

Even though the first-hand reviews of Apple TV's mega show, The Morning Show hasn't been too encouraging but not many can deny that the show will indeed be a rating-grabber and an instant attraction for sure. Nevertheless, one of the key concept of the show surrounds around the #MeToo movement and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon talked about how the movement empowered the show and the main concept around it.

As The Hollywood Reporter has reported, The Morning Show's journey to the screen has certainly been a journey. After outbidding Netflix for Jennifer Aniston's return to television, the soapy morning-show drama, which sees Aniston co-starring with fellow exec producer Reese Witherspoon, changed showrunners after the explosion of the #MeToo movement later that year. Kerry Ehrin, whose credits include Friday Night Lights, Parenthood and Bates Motel, was brought in to rewrite the script and steer the show as someone who could authentically present a woman's experience. 

The show's new leader and the explosion of the #MeToo era gave Aniston and Witherspoon the chance to truly be heard when it came to the hands-on approach they have adopted with their characters — longtime Morning Show anchor Alex Levy (Aniston), whose co-anchor (Steve Carell) has just been terminated over sexual misconduct allegations, and rising star reporter Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon) — and the show overall. 

"We had to deal with this idea that the entire system changed," Witherspoon tells THR when speaking at the NYC premiere at Lincoln Center. "People who were in power were getting fired and then people who were sort of next in line, who never thought that they would have power, were suddenly empowered. And I think that’s happening in corporations all over America where people are figuring out what their new role is."

Aniston describes her and Witherspoon coming together to help steer this vision as an exciting point in both of their careers. "We've known each other throughout the years," Aniston says of the time period between Witherspoon's Friends cameo (as Rachel Green's spoiled sister) to now. "It was wonderful to see, first of all, all that she has done over the years and then to meet where we have now come, after all that we have done together — it was really just exciting."

The Morning Show is a production collaboration between Aniston's Echo Films banner, Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine and Michael Ellenberg of Media Res. Witherspoon says, "We’re kind of in a new place in our careers where we’re actually getting to produce this material and get a lot of creative input, and we have a lot of experience." Aniston finishes her sentence, "And be heard and taken seriously, as that’s what the goal is."

"I wanted it to be heartbreaking and funny. That was really the goal in terms of tone," Ehrin tells THR of what she set out to accomplish from the get-go. "I wanted it to be a fun destination, even though it was telling, sometimes, sad or dark stories. I wanted it to be a place that people wanted to come to because the characters are so real and engaging, and they’re people you want to be with."

Much of the cast in attendance echoed the show's nuanced portrayal of the post-#MeToo era, particularly in the many female characters who are introduced at different stages of the Morning Show's corporate ladder.

The Morning Show also follows Mitch after his ouster and the likable Carell brings an element of humanity to a character that viewers would go into the series thinking they should hate. Of the risk of diving into that gray area, Ehrin urges, "It’s 10 episodes, so you have to watch the whole thing to see where we’re going. And I think that everyone in the story is very nuanced. Very grounded."

And while season two, as THR reported, will move beyond Mitch, Ehrin is already thinking about the long-term potential of the series. "I’m in the writers room and we have the tentpoles of where we’re going [for season two] and then we’re just figuring out how we’re driving to those destinations," she says. "I think it has a life in it that could go on for a while."