Jennifer Aniston Gets Emotional While Taking Questions From Young Girls
"We need to empower women to not just be about dresses and beauty and selfies."
— -- Jennifer Aniston got emotional when fielding questions from teenagers and children at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy Saturday.
The actress, 47, received a lifetime achievement award at the festival, which is Europe’s largest festival for children, and also did a Q&A with young girls from around the world, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The questions she received seemed to have an effect on Aniston, who teared up as she shared her most empowering advice.
Aniston appeared visibly touched after receiving a question on whether she ever woke up in the morning not knowing who she was.
"There are not enough fingers and toes in this entire room to count how many times that moment has happened to me," she responded. “We’re all human beings at the end of the day, whether we’re a waitress or a baker or a student or whatever we are, at the end of the day you kind of hit walls and think, 'I kind of can’t go any further.' Or, 'This is too much. My heart can’t take it or the pain is too great.' Or, 'Am I good enough? Will I survive?' And you just have to sort of somehow miraculously overcome. You just go, ‘I can’t, yes I can, yes you can.’”
The actress then reminded her audience that their idols, though famous, battle the same demons as they do.
"There’s nothing that separates us from you, because we all started at the same place,” she told the girls.
Aniston also touched on the importance of human connections in the digital age as it relates to the image of women after one attendee asked how Hollywood can work to tell women’s stories.
“I think we need to empower women to not just be about dresses and beauty and selfies. We need to start having conversations and put our phones down and get out of social media, take social media brakes,” she said.
Aniston added: “That’s why we’re not seeing the right stories being told, because everyone is stuck in their phones.”
In an essay published earlier this month in The Huffington Post, Aniston addressed the pregnancy rumors that seem to constantly dog her.
"For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up," she wrote, adding that women "are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies."
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