08/27/2014 AT 02:10 PM EDT
“I basically look like my mom,” she said at a press conference for the film in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “I pulled out a lot of her old pictures and tried to rock the old Nancy Aniston 1970s look.”
The actress, 45, is also a producer on the crime caper, which costars Will Forte, John Hawkes and Tim Robbins and is based on Elmore Leonard’s 1978 novel The Switch.
“I love how [Leonard] writes his characters,” she said. As for her role as a kidnapped housewife and mother, “I thought she had such a beautiful arc and a powerful one. In that time, to write that for a woman in the ’70s was pretty awesome.”
Upbeat and sleek in a formfitting dress – and sporting her gigantic engagement ring – Aniston told reporters she is eager to tackle more producing and directing gigs.
“Absolutely, that’s the next thing,” she said. “The big sort of hurdle I want to take on. I’ve done a few short films that I’ve just loved the experience of doing, and I’m just waiting for that wonderful window and that wonderful script and that will be the next one for me.”
What types of projects is she drawn to? “I love human experience. I love human beings and behavior and relationships, and it will probably have something to do with that.”
Asked what makes her happy, the bride-to-be – who recently returned from a romantic trip to Bora Bora with fiancé Justin Theroux – had a simple response.
“I’m just excited,” she said. “I’m happy where I am.”
• Reporting by MELODY CHIU
