Aniston and Vaughn's "Break-Up" mirrors real life

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston star in "The Break-Up." UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - The paparazzi, some 15 cameramen bearing tons of equipment, pace restlessly outside the Shutters Beach Club, just a few feet from the sands that lead down to the Pacific Ocean.

She, quickly brushing brown tresses back from her forehead, arrives in a chauffeured limousine - a stretch thing that could have passed for a tank. She's tiny. Cute. Pert. She looks like the girl next door or someone who might appear in a TV show called "Friends."

He arrives about five minutes later - a burly 6-foot-5 giant who suggests a kind of gangly beer-guzzling ease in spite of the spiffy sports coat and slacks and pastel colors. Both get flash bulbs in their faces. Both smile but walk briskly into the lobby.

It's Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, promising the first joint public statement after all the dating publicity that has made them an "item" during and after the filming of a movie called "The Break-Up" in Chicago. The title is ironic because the filming coincided with Aniston's break-up with husband Brad Pitt, who was taking up with actress Angelina Jolie. If you haven't heard about it, you've been away at the moon.

You can't kiss off a story when one photographer reportedly got $250,000 for the initial snapshot of Jen and Vince smooching on a hotel balcony. That was the shot that prompted the tabs to suggest that maybe Aniston was getting over the poor-wronged-wife role and was fighting back.

Now, together for this interview but never actually standing together, they seem a little nonplussed and sane about all the attention. She sometimes looks like a dear caught in the head lights but says the publicity is all a part of the game.

He points out that "I came out here at age 18. We were needy. I was happy to get one line in a commercial. I never thought of being famous. There was only one TV show covering the industry, 'Entertainment Tonight. ' Now there are dozens of shows, and I'm on them all. I don't take it seriously. I just think: 'Whatever.' "

Aniston, following a press agent who asks that there be "no personal questions," admits it is ironic that she was making a movie called "The Break-Up" at the time.

"The script arrived at home, and I thought, 'Why not?' I thought it was a sign. A cathartic time. If this had come to me at another time in my life, I don't know if I would have been able to understand it as an actor."