She has also led the way in opening up a conversation about how female celebrities are treated by the media, particularly when it comes to very personal reproductive choices. Aniston was, for the best part of two decades, the subject of constant media scrutiny about whether she was, was not or would not become pregnant, with rumours abounding that her divorce from Pitt came about because she was prioritising her career over having a child. In fact, she had privately been going through IVF, which was ultimately unsuccessful. For a long time, she stayed silent, not wanting to fuel the flames of the debate, but in 2016, she finally decided enough was enough, and wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post speaking out against the insensitive behaviour of the mainstream media. “They didn’t know my story, or what I’d been going through over the past 20 years to try to pursue a family, because I don’t go out there and tell them my medical woes,” she says, switching into the present tense as if reliving the pain afresh. “That’s not anybody’s business. But there comes a point when you can’t not hear it – the narrative about how I won’t have a baby, won’t have a family, because I’m selfish, a workaholic. It does affect me – I’m just a human being. We’re all human beings. That’s why I thought, ‘What the hell?’” She spoke on behalf of others in her situation, “because I knew a lot of women at the time who were trying to have kids, who were dealing with IVF. So it did feel like it was not only for myself, but for any women who were struggling with the same issue”. While she is grateful that tabloid culture, and the days of the “circle of shame”, is now less powerful, she worries that the cruelty that once lived on the pages of magazines and newspapers has simply moved into the shadowy world of social media. “So now any schmuck can stay anonymous and write whatever the hell they want to write…”

Her concerns about the dominance of technology in our society are strongly felt, and reflected in the themes of the new season of The Morning Show, which is in post-production when we speak. There is a storyline about Aniston’s character being the victim of impersonation using a deepfake – something that she says happens to her in real life with some frequency. “I catch things all the time, or friends send me things saying, ‘I don’t think this is you’, or ‘I don’t think you’re advertising this’, and I’ll send it to my lawyers so they can do a cease-and-desist. It’s just such a runaway train,” she says of the growth of AI. “Big tech, it’s crazy…” She is especially anxious about the lack of regulation around young people’s use of social media. “I’m sure the guys who came up with it thought it was a great idea and, yeah, congratulations on your billions, but it has taken down a huge portion of humanity.”