Jennifer Aniston and Dolly Parton’s Unlikely Friendship Is the Greatest Thing Netflix Ever Created
Jennifer Aniston’s newest film, Netflix’s Dumplin’, has her playing a former beauty queen whose anti-pageant daughter, Willowdean (Danielle Macdonald), feeling neglected by Aniston’s Rosie, turns instead to the music of Dolly Parton—as well as a merry band of Parton-impersonating drag queens—for comfort and wisdom. Though Parton doesn’t appear in the film, she did readily approve the use of her music in it, and even co-wrote six new songs for the soundtrack, all of which has resulted in Parton and Aniston teaming up for various Dumplin’ press junkets, and thus giving the world the friendship we didn’t know we needed.
On Wednesday, the pair sat through multiple interviews in the same studio with various outlets, spilling details of their collaborations on set, in the recording booth, and, if Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, has any say in it, in the bedroom. In one of the day’s interviews, with E! News, Parton and Aniston were asked about Parton’s recent reveal, on The Tonight Show, that Dean “fantasizes” about having a threesome with Aniston. “My husband, he thought it was a hoot,” Parton told E! of Dean’s reaction to her spilling his secret fantasy on national television. “And he said, ‘Well, maybe I couldn’t do a threesome, but I think, if it is Jennifer, I could do, like, a two and a half.’”
Aniston, for her part, didn’t totally shut down the proposal. “I could not believe it,” she said. “I basically fell over, and I just was like, The only person in the world who could get away with saying that is Dolly Parton.”
In another of Wednesday’s interviews, this time with Entertainment Tonight, the dynamic duo talked about teaming up on Parton’s new song “Push and Pull,” which also features Macdonald. “It was terrifying and fun and all of it,” Aniston said of the experience, which marked her first time recording a song for any of her many films. “I sort of just had this weird dream of a lifetime just come crashing in on me.… I imagine if I ever were to jump out of an airplane, I would probably have the same reaction of, like, I just did that!”
Though Aniston said she initially had trouble even getting a “squeak” out, she was eventually able to perform the song. “And then, when we finished, I remember, I just burst into tears,” she said. “She did get emotional after she was done,” Parton noted, but reassured Aniston that her harmonies had been top-notch.
Parton also gave her stamp of approval to Aniston’s Texas accent, which Aniston said she picked up mostly by ear. “I thought she did great, and I told her that,” Parton said. “I was really impressed. And I knew she worried about it because she did not know—she needed to hear it from somebody who knew. So I leaned in and said, ‘Your accent is great, you did a great job,’ and she said, ‘Whew!’ but I meant it.”
