Cinelou FilmsJennifer Aniston didn't have to look far for advice on her starring role in Cake as a woman who suffers from extreme chronic pain after a horrible car crash.
Her stunt double of about eight years, Stacy Courtney, had survived a traumatic boat accident that nearly killed her.
In 1997, Courtney was run over by a boat propeller that "chewed up my left leg," she said last night at a special screening of the movie in West Hollywood. "I almost lost my life and went through three years of chronic pain, incredible recovery [and] many surgeries."
Aniston was aware of Courtney's story but not the intimate details. "I knew she had gone through a horrific, traumatic injury and that her career, her life was basically held at pause for awhile," she said.
And then Aniston signed on to star as Claire in Cake (in theaters on Jan. 23).
"There were so many similarities in the story of my accident and trauma," Courtney said. "It was a bizarre full-circle moment that now she would be playing this and we could have this conversation and talk about it. So she asked if I would sit and really share the details of what it felt like to live through that."
Aniston's work has earned her high critical praise as well as Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice nominations. (Expect her name to be among the Oscar nominees when nominations are announced on Jan. 15.)
The Friends star also worked with doctors, addiction specialists (her character is hooked on prescription painkillers) and others suffering from chronic pain to transform into Claire.
"It as really about what was the accident, what happened, what was broken, what part of my body…was hurting all the time," Aniston said. "It was pretty excruciating and a shattering of her body and it was basically just moving in that slow way constantly and the second layer of the cake was the emotional wreckage."
Aniston said becoming Claire was also about "understanding the effects the drugs have on the body and then incorporating the emotional, which is the acting job of just trying to access that kind of pain, emotional pain, in an unimaginable situation."
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