Caroline Westbrook BBC News Online entertainment staff

Along Came Polly has been a big hit in the US

She may have waved goodbye to her role on Friends - but Jennifer Aniston is making just as much of a splash at the cinema as she has on TV.

Last year, she starred in the smash hit comedy Bruce Almighty alongside Jim Carrey as well as impressing critics in low-budget drama The Good Girl.

Her latest film, Along Came Polly, sees her back in romantic comedy mode.

Directed by Meet The Parents writer John Hamburg, it knocked The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King off the top of the US box office when it was released there in January.

In the film, Aniston plays a waitress whose carefree approach to life is in direct contrast to that of her new love interest, neurotic risk assessment analyst Ruben Feffer, played by Ben Stiller.

Romance

The pair strike up a romance after Ruben is dumped on his honeymoon by his new wife Lisa - played by Will And Grace star Debra Messing - but it is not all plain sailing.

"Polly is a free spirit," Aniston says. "She has a bit of a fear of commitment, avoiding love, and when she meets Ruben, Ben's character, that all kind of gets thrown to the wind."

Stiller, meanwhile, describes Ruben as "a guy who has a really clear idea of what he thinks his life is going to be like.

"Then it all gets turned upside down, so he's forced to rethink everything."

Jennifer Aniston plays a waitress in the film

Other co-stars include Hank Azaria, Alec Baldwin and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Ruben's best friend, a washed-up actor living off the success of a single hit film from the 1980s.

It's a change of pace for Hoffman, who is normally associated with more dramatic roles - but Stiller is full of praise for his co-star.

"He's an incredible actor and it was great to see him do something light and funny in this movie," he says.

Aniston, meanwhile, is enjoying the chance to explore different roles after spending 10 years on Friends - but acknowledges that getting her small screen alter ego out of people's minds is a big challenge.

"This part I've done for 10 years will be hard to get that out of peoples' minds whenever they see anything else that I do because I've played this consistent character," she says.

Silly

"But I'll just do my job as best I can and hopefully that will go away."

And while her big screen career looks set to flourish - she is tipped to star in a sequel to The Graduate - Aniston is keeping her options open when it comes to the future.

"I wouldn't say I'll never go back to TV, that would be silly," she says.