Jen ?derailed? by infidelity

New York: For actress Jennifer Aniston, the release of her new movie Derailed, could have been better timed.

Aniston plays the role of a woman with a shaky marriage who has a steamy affair.

The star of the hit television comedy Friends has been riding an unwanted wave of tabloid publicity over her divorce from actor Brad Pitt.

While still married, Pitt was widely rumored to be involved with Angelina Jolie, his co-star in the movie Mr & Mrs Smith.

Now, after months of laying low to avoid prying paparazzi, Aniston, was recently photographed in an embrace with actor Vince Vaughn, her co-star on a film aptly titled The Break Up, which set off a new wave of gossip.

During publicity interviews for Derailed in New York this week, Aniston declined to answer personal questions and brushed aside queries about the movie's infidelity theme.

Aniston showed no sign of anxiety over playing a serious role in a psychological thriller?her first movie release since her divorce.

Derailed, a $22 million project and the first feature released by Miramax Films founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein under their newly formed studio The Weinstein Co., has been directed by Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom.

British actor Clive Owen stars as a married advertising executive who has an affair with a seductive woman, played by Aniston, before they are robbed and suffer consequences beyond their control.

Evoking Hitchcock

In a joint interview with Owen, a polite but guarded Aniston was smoothly saved by her co-star when asked about the characters' affair.

"They are not bad people trying to cheat on their spouses, but they are drawn together and they are flawed," said Owen, who compared the story to Alfred Hitchcock films in which ordinary people are led into extraordinary situations.

Aniston laughed off any parallels between the nightmare the characters face in Derailed and her own life hounded by the public and the media.

"This is not the norm to have our lives probed and prodded at and tossed around like a hot potato, but I just don't pay attention to that," Aniston said.