There’s very few actresses that have achieved a firmer place in Hollywood than Jennifer Aniston. From the moment she first played Rachel Green on the 1990’s sitcom megahit Friends, Aniston has only further consolidated her sense of comic timing and instantly identifiable everywoman quality into sure-fire film hits, many of which in the romantic comedy subgenre, running the gamut from Picture Perfect to The Object Of My Affection to Along Came Polly to The Break Up to Marley And Me to He’s Just Not That Into You.

However, Jennifer has chosen a more daring path as straitlaced Sue Claussen for her newest romantic comedy, the independently-made Management. It’s a more daring path for the actress, she says, because it’s film director’s Stephen Belber debut film.

Belber previously wrote the films Tape (adapted from a play he himself wrote), The Laramie Project, and Match and reportedly found the prospect of working with a well-established and high-profile actress like Aniston “intimidating”. The 40 year old actress explained for us how that admission only found him even more endearing for her to work with.

“That’s what’s so…how honest he is about his position as a first-time director is why this character is written as innocently and honestly as it is,” Aniston explains, “That’s Steve. And it’s refreshing, as opposed to having somebody come in and trying to overcompensate for appearing as they know more than they do, having the willingness to be what he is, a first-time director and not quite…you know.”

“But he has such amazing instincts and he comes from the theater, too,” she continues, “Mmm hmm. “It’s really brave how he takes the swings from one film to another, yet, it does, it all does. You’re never going like, what movie am I in? It’s brave. That’s what it really is.”

We also asked Aniston what it was that attracted her the most to Belber’s script for the film.

“All of it,” she replies, “First of all, fastest read ever, such wonderful….well, with reading romantic comedy after romantic comedy, it was very refreshing to read about these two flawed, odd birds that find each other. Yeah, it was just really special. She makes some very strange choices.”

Jennifer also jumped at the opportunity to play a character that ends up going against her more usual archetypal straight-laced, everywoman nature she’s more accustomed to playing when Sue embarks on a fling with the looser and less-disciplined Mike Cranshaw, played by co-starSteve Zahn.

“Yeah, you have to,” Aniston believes, “You go, this isn’t me. I wouldn’t do it this way, but that’s why she’s her. And that’s sort of fun, you get to kind of really step outside of yourself and be a loon.”

We asked Aniston whether it was less work for her to play a crazier character.

“Yeah, yeah, trust me,” Jennifer answers, “Even though you’re still in a chair for an hour and a half getting a wig on. I love that nobody seemed to notice it was a wig. I was worried that it would be distracting, so, yeah, but I totally lost track of what I was saying.”

She shared with us what it was like working with Steve Zahn with him playing such a creepy role.

“Fun, with the best,” Aniston reveals, “Truly is. I’m sure he was fulfilled on every level. The way Steve plays it, there’s not even a risk of it with his reaction. I think if he played against that, because he’s not playing creepy, he’s playing true. He plays it so earnestly and so innocently that it just never…there was never a threat of it in my opinion, coming across.”

We asked Aniston whether she has been with anybody as persistent as Mike Cranshaw is with her character in the film.

“Mmm hmm, yes, I have,” Jennifer replies, “I’ve had it, didn’t end up that they should have not been (chuckles), but yes. Steve whittled a turtle out of soap. It’s tame.”

One of the highlight scenes Management is the film’s laundry scene.

“It was so fun,” Aniston recalls, “It was choreographed, hilarious, it’s so wonderful, odd, just so absurd that it was fun. And the scene after, with Fred [Ward], so funny.”

Another scene Aniston alludes to particularly liking that ended up getting cut from the final version of the film was an attack dog scene involving Steve Zahn’s character.

“I was so bummed,” Jennifer says, “They never laugh harder seeing these things. You see the blue suit that he wore. There has to be. The one when the Malinois attacks him. I’ve never seen anything like it. Yes, they wanted him off the ramp. He would, he’s such a trooper. It was…The thing’s aghast.”

One of the scenes we particularly wanted Jennifer to comment on was an ass-grabbing scene, which is prominently recreated on the poster for the film.

“They felt an ass!” Aniston says simply, laughing, “Oh, God! It was warm.”

One particularly noteworthy cast member in the film is Woody Harrelson, who plays Sue’s rebel ex-boyfriend-turned-yogurt-model Jango. Aniston recalls how she approached Harrelson to do the film with her.

“I’ve known Woody for a long time, but yeah,” Jennifer says, “He hadn’t actually…it was good. I can’t remember what happened, actually, but it passed and he didn’t get the rewrite and then all of his questions had been answered, and so, it was all about trying to answer. I remember reading the scene over the phone to him, like playing both of our parts, and him cracking up. I said, see! It’s all fixed! It’s funny. He was in.”

We asked Jennifer that even despite 2009 already gaining one of the most successful box office performances in years for film, whether she was worried the hoopla of the big summer movies will overshadow the independently-made Management.

“I know, it should have come out in the fall,” Aniston says, “But, no, you can’t. It’s happening. So what can you do? But, hopefully, people will find it. I know people will find it. We’ll make people find it!”

Finally, Aniston was quick to note of the other films she has under her belt for the latter half of the year.

“Right now, I’m doing The Baster in New York, then, I come back in a month to do a movie called Bounty Hunter. I play a journalist who is on the run because she was a witness to a…I’m sorry, my brain is like potatoes.”

This begged the inevitable impulsive question, au gratin?

“Yeah. Always. Doesn’t that make you hungry?” Jennifer replies, “But anyway, the bounty hunter, her ex-husband, is given her as his hit. It’s actually a really good script (laughing). It’s funny. It’s fun, I promise.”