ACTRESSES Jennifer Aniston, 50, and Reese Witherspoon, 43, star as news anchors in the The Morning Show, a brand-new Apple TV+ series about a breakfast television programme in the middle of a sexual harassment scandal. Gemma Dunn finds out more about their on-screen reunion.

IT'S BEEN NEARLY TWO DECADES SINCE YOU LAST APPEARED ON SCREEN TOGETHER IN FRIENDS. HAD YOU BEEN LOOKING TO REUNITE?

JA: We have been looking for years and we just never found the right thing that seemed to click for both of us - and this did.

Michael (Ellenberg, executive producer) came to both of us and it was kind of a dream scenario. We then figured out a schedule - "it will be this way" but it didn't (work that way). It was harder than we all thought, everyone was like: "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

JENNIFER, IT'S YOUR FIRST FORAY ON TV AFTER 15 YEARS. ARE YOU GLAD TO BE BACK?

JA: It is but it doesn't really feel like it. In terms of the workload, it didn't feel like going back to television so much because the schedule was insane.

Let me tell you something, this is not what it used to be, it was a lot easier than this. Or maybe we are just a little older?

But it was fantastic, we had so much fun, we worked so hard, but it was the most rewarding thing I've done in years.

THE SHOW EXPLORES SOME HUGE THEMES, FROM GENDER INEQUALITY AND SEXISM TO AGEISM. HOW WILLING WERE APPLE TV+ IN OFFERING UP THAT PLATFORM?

RW: They were really willing to let us explore and those are all really big topics so we wanted to really trust the company we worked with.

JA: They're great partners. They were distracted trying to build their streaming service so we were allowed to sort of do our job.

It's been great, though, in terms of we're a part of something that's literally from the ground up so that felt very new and exciting.

THE DRAMA EXPLORES THE #METOO ERA. IT MUST HAVE FELT LIKE QUITE A RESPONSIBILITY TO DO JUSTICE TO THE WOMEN WHO HAVE SPOKEN OUT?

RW: I'm enormously grateful to the women who spoke up and exposed the harassment and the hostile work environments that they have experienced. It really felt like a responsibility that we had to help tell those stories but also to reveal the human side of it.

And I'm also very grateful to Steve Carell (who plays the disgraced TV host) for really joining in on this conversation because men need to be part of it, too.

JA: I think we feel responsibility with any drama, any creative material we are in is a responsibility, but especially this. I think Kerry Ehrin, our writer and creator, really wrote a brilliant script, and layered and complicated characters, and also took a look at this whole new normal that we are all walking through. In a very not black and white (way) she allowed the grey areas to be explored.

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT THAT TELEVISION REFLECTS THE CURRENT CLIMATE?

JA: It should at least. What was important to us was the tone and how we approach these subjects, which was as it was happening in the world.

I know everyone is trying to figure out this new "normal" and the clumsiness of it and the messiness of it and the things you're forbidden to say behind closed doors - so I think they did a really wonderful job.

RW: I think when you get to the place that I'm at or Jen's at, it's important that we advocate for others because it doesn't work if it's just for us.

It's opening the door for other people so I'm enormously proud to be in this position, I take it very seriously.

JA: We have so much more to do. Twenty years ago, 30 years ago, that's when they were sending women out to pasture - we're just getting started.

JENNIFER, YOU SAID THIS IS THE MOST CREATIVE YOU'VE FELT IN A WHILE. WHAT'S CHANGED?

JA: Just experience. I'm a late bloomer, I guess, in terms of feeling excited about what my potential is.

I know that sounds like something I should have figured out a while ago but I think (it's) because opportunities are more.

We have more opportunities and I've been very, very blessed and fortunate to still be here doing what I really love to do.

BOTH OF YOU SERVE AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ON THE MORNING SHOW. IS THE TIDE CHANGING WHEN IT COMES TOWARDS EQUALITY IN HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTIONS?

RW: Women are stepping up into leadership positions but it's definitely a gender-balanced production. We had just as many men as women and I think that is great, we are finally getting to parity, which is really nice.

It was quite a few years later (after Friends) so we had different experience, but it was great to be in a producer position now because we have learned so much and we have a lot to add.

AS FOR YOUR FRIENDS YEARS, IT'S FAIR TO SAY FANS WERE EXCITED BY THIS REUNION.

JA: We are still trying to figure out what it was about it (Friends) that had such an impact but I think it was the support of friendship and how important that was. And we didn't have cellphones!

RW: It's so beloved, it's like people love you in such a way that is so deep and personal to them.

Somebody was saying their husband proposed in a way that a character on Friends proposed and I was so moved by that.

It's a profound piece of raising people and culture. I think everybody wants that in their lives, friends like that. I love it - whenever it's on, I stop and stare at it. It makes me feel good.

The Morning Show is available now on Apple TV+.