“I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude of ‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show,’” Aniston recalls

Stephanie Wenger is a TV Writer/Reporter at PEOPLE. She joined the brand in 2021 as a digital news writer, covering stories spanning across the site’s verticals. She previously contributed E! Online, Hollywood Life and Oscar.com.

Jennifer Aniston in September 2024.Credit : Kevin Mazur/Getty

Jennifer Aniston is looking back on when she nearly became a Saturday Night Live cast member.

When asked about her decision to turn down an offer to appear in the cast of the NBC sketch comedy show before her Friends fame on the Oct. 13 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Aniston, 56, said, “I always thought I was such hot s—. The story of that is all very confusing.”

“Honestly, today I’d have to ask Lorne, because I remember, I was in New York City, and I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels, and I ran into [Adam] Sandler and [David] Spade in the room right outside,” she added. “And I knew Sandler forever.”

Molly Shannon and Jennifer Aniston on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1999.

Host Dax Shepard asked if her friendship with Sandler — whom she starred alongside in Just Go with It and the Murder Mystery franchise — predated Friends.

“Yes, he was very good friends with Charlie Schlatter, who played Ferris Bueller in the television version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the Morning Show star said, referring to a short-lived 1990-1991 TV adaptation of the 1986 Matthew Broderick movie. Aniston starred in the series as Ferris’ sister.

“So we met at Jerry’s Deli in like 1912,” she joked of the 59-year-old comedian.

The actress shared that she has preconceived notions about how she would be treated on the show, saying, “I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude of ‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show.’ It’s a very male-dominated [show,] I would love to be here if it was in the Gilda Radner day.”

“I mean, this is the brain that semi-remembers things that are back that far,” she added. “Something like that. I can’t remember, but I just remember Friends then happened.”

Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston and Tim Meadows on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1999.

During a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aniston further detailed how she told Michaels she wasn’t interested in joining the show. “I was so young and dumb and I went into Lorne’s office and I was like, ‘I hear women are not respected on this show,’ ” she said. “I don’t remember exactly what I said next, but it was something like, ‘I would prefer if it were like the days of Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin.’ ”

“I mean, it was such a boys’ club back then, but who the f— was I to be saying this to Lorne Michaels?! So yes, adorably that happened and I’ve hosted Saturday Night Live a couple of times, and I love it so much,” she continued.

Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.Laurent VU/SIPA/Shutterstock

While appearing on The Howard Stern Show in 2019, she recalled confronting Michaels about the lack of female representation on the show.

“I was like, ‘I think that women need to be treated better here.’ Because it was such a boys club,” she said. “You’re just, not the brightest when you’re in your early 20s. I didn’t lecture him, I was just saying what I would hope if I was to do this, what I would hope it to be.”

“I was such a young twit,” she laughed.

In celebration of the iconic sketch show’s 50th anniversary earlier this year, SNL alum Molly Shannon recalled Aniston being “very laid back” while hosting the NBC late-night show.

“I remember being like, ‘Ooh, that’s so cool. Jennifer Aniston,’ ” she recalled. “And she had a big wedding ring on and she was just [an] easygoing professional, [she] had been in television for a long time.”