Before stepping into the eponymous role in the upcoming series based on Jennette McCurdy’s 2022 memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” Jennifer Aniston got to know the child-actor-turned-author. She told People that they bonded quickly, noting they “have a lot in common” and “had very similar moms.”
McCurdy rose to fame at just fifteen years old, becoming the co-star of the Nickelodeon sitcom “iCarly” alongside Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress and Jerry Trainor in 2007. The show ran for six seasons and then McCurdy co-led the spinoff “Sam and Cat” alongside Ariana Grande from 2013 through 2014. In “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” McCurdy recounts her turbulent experience as a child star, with an emphasis on the forceful role of her obsessive and abusive mother, Debra, who passed away in 2013.
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Apple TV greenlit a series adaptation of McCurdy’s book in July, with Aniston attached to executive produce as well as star as a fictional version of the titular mom. “When it came across my desk as an option, an offer to play this character and work with Jennette and (executive producer) Sharon Horgan and (production company) LuckyChap, I was pretty much immediately intrigued and flattered and excited,” Aniston told People. “It’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be pretty great to start shooting it.”
Aniston called the memoir “beautifully written” and praised McCurdy as “so special,” saying, “The fact that she’s the young woman that she is, having lived that life, is nothing short of remarkable.”
As for the parallels between McCurdy and Aniston’s mothers, the star did not elaborate, but she has mentioned a contentious relationship with her late mother, Nancy Dow, in previous interviews. In 2018, she told the Sunday Telegraph, “She was a model and she was all about presentation and what she looked like and what I looked like. I did not come out the model child she’d hoped for.”
“I’m Glad My Mom Died” will span ten episodes, created, written and showrun by McCurdy and Ari Katcher. Additional executive producers include Jerrod Carmichael and Erica Kay.
