Sideshow: Jennifer Aniston on life and being a control freak

What's a little Oscar snub when you've been on Friends?

Jennifer Aniston is hitting the P.R. road hard to show she hasn't shattered like so much cheap glass after being denied an Oscar nod for her role in Cake. Aniston, 45, reminds us all she's still terribly handsome, wealthy, and famous. But she also is opening up, revealing some of the gooey emotions that goop about behind the gorgeous hairdo.

Take mommy dearest.

"She was critical. She was very critical of me," Jen tells the Hollywood Reporter of her mom, Nancy. "Because she was a model, she was gorgeous, stunning. I wasn't. I never was." Awww, shucks, but you are so beautiful, Jen! "I honestly still don't think of myself in that sort of light," she says.

Jen's mom wasn't real nice: "She was also very unforgiving. She would hold grudges that I just found so petty," Jen says.

Brad Pitt's most famous ex-lover says her childhood was dominated by another source of insecurity: dyslexia. It was not diagnosed until she was in her 20s. "I thought I wasn't smart," she said. "I just couldn't retain anything."

Given these problems, it's not hard to understand why Jennifer Aniston grew up to be a self-described control freak.

"I like to be in charge of everything. My life was so out of control growing up, it's very important today for it to be in control."

Former Disney TV teen star David Henrie, 25, has been chosen to star in a biopic about the only leader of the free world who cut his teeth as a B-movie actor. The Hollywood Reporter says Henrie (Wizards of Waverly Place, How I Met Your Mother) will play the youthful version of President Ronald Reagan in the independent flick Reagan.

The film will tell the Gipper's story from the point of view of the KGB officer in charge of following Reagan's movements from his days in Hollywood through his two terms in the White House.

"It's a universal film with universal values and principles," Henrie told THR.

Box-store dominator Walmart has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of the late comic James McNair. The suit stems from a June 7 collision on the New Jersey Turnpike between a Walmart truck and a limo van carrying McNair and friend and fellow comic Tracy Morgan, who sustained serious injuries.

"It will allow these young adults to go forward with their lives in a manner that would make their dad proud," said attorney Daryl Zaslow, who represents McNair's children, 19-year-old Danita and 26-year-old Jamel.

New Girl star Zoe Deschanel, 34, has become engaged to producer bf Jacob Pechenik, 42, her rep tells USA Today. The couple, who have been dating some months, are reported to be expecting their first child.

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