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Jennifer Aniston: Motherhood, Marriage Shouldn’t Determine “My Value as a Woman”

Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston sat down for an interview with Carson Daly on the Today show and opened up about the pressure to get married and have kids Mike Pont/FilmMagic

She is woman, hear her roar! Jennifer Aniston shut down the haters yet again when she sat down with Carson Daly to tape an interview for the Today show's Wednesday, Aug. 27, episode. During their chat, the Cake actress, 45, opened up about the pressure she feels to start a family, and how she's changed since Friends went off the air 10 years ago.

Related: PHOTOS: Jen's Us Weekly covers

At one point in the sit-down, Daly brought up Aniston's Q&A with famed feminist Gloria Steinem at the February Makers Conference, where the two joked that they were in "deep s–t" because they're not currently married with children. "I'd talked to her personally about this for a while, just because it is such an issue of, like, 'Are you married yet? Are you going to have your babies yet?'" Aniston explained to Daly. (The star has been engaged to Justin Theroux since summer 2012.)

Related: PHOTOS: Jen and Justin's love timeline

"I don't have this sort of checklist of things that have to be done, and…if they're not checked, then I've failed some part of my feminism or my being a woman or my worth and my value as a woman because I haven't birthed a child," Brad Pitt's ex-wife continued. "I've birthed a lot of things, and I feel like I've mothered many things," she said. "And I don't feel like it's fair to put that pressure on people."

Related: PHOTOS: Jen's incredible bikini body through the years

Pressure at work is a different story. The Horrible Bosses 2 actress welcomes chances to challenge herself and step outside her comfort zone, as she does in the upcoming dark comedy Life of Crime. "I'm having a lot of fun, because I've been branching out and…playing different characters and hiding and going into…some darker stuff," she raved.

Which is not to say she hasn't enjoyed the lighter stuff, of course. Aniston cherishes it all, because it brought her to where she is now.

Related: PHOTOS: Jen's hair evolution

"I feel like I've grown up three times. I feel like I've had three different periods of adolescence," she told Daly when asked about the trajectory of her career since Friends. "I've had an incredible evolution. I keep seeing these little lifetimes that I lived, and they're all so wonderful. They all served me so well…I feel very grateful to my evolution and my history. I would never exchange it for anything."

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