It was beautiful: Jennifer Aniston on wearing Manish Malhotra’s dress in ‘Murder Mystery 2’

PTI, Mar 28, 2023, 11:08 AM IST

Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston says she had a gala time gorging on Indian food and donning a “beautiful” lehenga by Indian fashion designer Manish Malhotra for her upcoming film Murder Mystery 2.

Aniston, who enjoys a huge fan following in India courtesy her hit 1990s sitcom Friends, wore an ivory-coloured chikankari lehenga designed by Malhotra for an Indian wedding sequence in the Netflix movie. Renowned Hollywood costume designer Debra Mcguire had picked the ensemble for the actor.

Aniston, 54, described the dress, which took approximately three months to create, as a “beautiful” attire which was surprisingly heavy.

“It was a beautiful, beautiful dress,” the actor told PTI in a virtual roundtable interview.

Sandler, who was also part of the conversation, said Aniston “looked stunning” in the lehenga.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she responded to her co-star’s praise.

“It was extremely heavy and I wasn’t expecting that. So much respect for all the beautiful women of India who have to not only wear it, but dance their b**** off. We had a really good time,” she added.

The new Netflix movie is the sequel to 2019’s Murder Mystery, which followed married couple Nick and Audrey Spitz who get caught up in a murder investigation on a billionaire’s yacht.

“Murder Mystery 2” lifts off four years after the events of the first film in the comedy mystery franchise. Now, the Spitzes are full-time detectives struggling to get their private eye agency off the ground when they’re invited to celebrate the wedding of their friend the Maharaja (Adeel Akhtar) on his private island, a character introduced in the first film.

But trouble follows the Spitzes again when the groom is kidnapped for ransom soon after the festivities begin — making each glamorous guest, family member, and the bride herself a suspect.

Aniston and Sandler have previously worked together in the 2011 romantic comedy “Just Go with It”.

Aniston said they shot the wedding scene for three days in Hawaii.

The actors, who are real-life friends and share great chemistry on screen, were also completing each other’s sentences in the roundtable interview.

“We had five days to shoot that scene,” she said, to which Sandler, 56, added, “And dance and eat Indian food.”

“Food and be happy. But remember how long it took? We also shot it in Hawaii for three days,” Aniston continued.

Sandler once again dished out a compliment to his co-star.

“It was hot. You looked fantastic,” he said.

The wedding scene, which comes at an important juncture in the film, directed by Jeremy Garelick, begins with festivities that involved many dancers.

“The dancers were exquisite. It was so beautiful. It was gorgeous. So much fun,” Aniston recalled.

Murder Mystery 2, penned by James Vanderbilt, sends Nick and Audrey Spitz on a high-stakes case that finally gives them everything they’ve ever dreamed of: a shot at their detective agency finally becoming successful and their long-awaited trip to Paris.

Asked if a third part would follow in the franchise, Sandler said they are yet to take a call on that, but added that he would love to come to India some day.

“I’ve never been to India. I would love to be there. My friends have been there. They show me pictures, videos, it looks incredible. We’ll talk (about Murder Mystery 3) once that (topic) comes, we’ll figure it out. But that would be fun,” the actor said.

Also starring Mark Strong, Melanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, John Kani, Kuhoo Verma, Enrique Arce, and Zurin Villanueva with Dany Boon, Murder Mystery 2 will stream on Netflix from March 31.