Today officially marks 30 years since Friends entered our lives and changed it forever – for the better.
For a whole decade Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry brought us infinite comfort and joy as Monica and Ross Geller, Rachel Green, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing.
This anniversary feels particularly poignant, marking the first since the death of Perry, who was found dead at his home in LA on October 28 last year, at the age of 54.
Fans and stars have continued to express their shock and sorry over the sudden and shocking tragedy, and undoubtedly many will have binged the beloved 90s sitcom in recent months.
In celebration of the mammoth milestone, we’ve compiled a list of 30 secrets from the show, after exclusively caught up with Friends costume designer Debra McGuire, set designer Greg Grande and producer and director Kevin S Bright for the 25th anniversary in 2019.
Could we *be* any more excited to share them with you?
1) Jack Geller was almost killed off
Kevin pitched the idea of killing Jack Geller (Elliott Gould) off. You know, because Monica and Ross hadn’t already been through enough.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, he revealed that he would have granted the dad’s wishes and had him buried at sea.
‘I think at times I was hoping the show could touch on… it was so good at touching on serious subjects and being funny about it,’ Kevin said.
‘For example, I was going through in my life at the time of the role-reversal that you go through with parents – the realisation that you’re the baby and they take care of you and then you rebirth and you start taking care of them, and the realisation your parents aren’t immortal, but nobody wanted to kill off Elliott Gould.’
We’re glad this never happened.
2) Sting dropped out of his cameo at the last minute
Believe it or not, Trudie Styler was a last-minute stand when her husband Sting canceled.
‘We had Trudy Stilo because Sting was supposed to show up,’ Greg spilled.
3) Marcel was an ‘obnoxious idiot’
There was a reason Marcel only lasted eight episodes – and that’s because he was a nightmare.
‘Marcel was a pain in the a**e to everybody,’ Debra scorned. ‘Marcel was just a pain in the a**e. It’s hard to love an animal when it’s such an idiot. He was an obnoxious monkey, just not very likable.’
Sounds like a right hoot.
4) Marcel’s scenes were adlib
We’ve already gathered that Marcel was a complete jerk, and as it turns out he had complete dominance when the cameras started rolling.
‘The beautiful thing about Marcel is that the director let the cameras roll and the actors were good about playing to whatever the monkey decided to do, which was some of the best footage that was not rehearsed,’ Greg revealed.
‘We always ended up with the unexpected take that would work, it was just magic.’
5) Matt LeBlanc suffered a brutal injury on set
We’re told there was only one on-set accident during the whole 10 years of Friends, and that was Matt dislocating his shoulder.
‘It was in Monica’s apartment and we were shooting an early show in season five,’ Greg said. ‘There was a scene where they were running over, I think it was Joey and Chandler, and they were fighting about sitting in a chair – as they often did.
‘Matt ended up tripping and falling, he tripped over a carpet and then fell into the side of the club chair in her apartment and ended up dislocating his shoulder.’
Gregg added: ‘He did a couple of scenes after that but they had to call the show off because it was so bad.
‘It was based on a stunt they were both doing themselves. It was unfortunate.’
Ouch.
6) Monica’s fat suit had to be ventilated
Monica’s fat suit was a complete nightmare and Courteney was a champ for putting up with it, tbh.
‘In those early years, we did not have that fat suit together,’ Debra recalled. ‘We had a big learning curve on how to keep her cool. That was difficult.
‘Courteney was quite a champ to be able to wear that, act in that and be funny. That was really challenging I think.
‘It was a foam body that she climbed into. We had to pipe in air through the back to keep her ventilated. Eventually, we had to do something because it was quite uncomfortable.’
7) This is the story behind The Geller Cup
The troll doll superglued onto a little wooden block aka The Geller Cup is a trophy like no other.
‘The prop girl on the show ended up showing the writers the troll idea and they took to it and then they developed the trophy with the doll,’ Greg told us.
Remarkable.
8) Lisa Kudrow’s real-life sister played Ursula
Lisa’s sister Marla would film as Ursula’s back whenever she was in a scene with Phoebe.
Explaining how it went down, Debra let loose: ‘When we saw the back of Phoebe speaking to Phoebe, the back was a body double.
‘This was Lisa Kudrow’s real-life sister for many seasons.’
Mind, blown.
9) The crew hid a doll around set as their own personal Easter egg
The Friends crew had a funny little doll that they used to hide in and around some of the sets.
Greg recalled they hid the toy in the freezer of Monica’s refrigerator and in little nooks and crannies in Chandler and Joey’s apartment.
‘It was just this little ragdoll and we just did it as a little Easter egg for us,’ he said.
10) Central Perk had a refurb every three to four episodes
If you paid close attention, you’d notice that the wall art in Central Perk changes just as much as Rachel’s feelings for Ross.
‘Every three or four episodes I changed the artwork on the back wall of Central Perk,’ Greg told us. ‘I was diligent about meeting artists all around the world that were interested in putting their art on the show.
‘We made a few people’s careers out of it, that was interesting to watch!’
11) Ever wondered why the gang always managed to bag that sofa in Central Perk?
How on earth did the Friends manage to get the same spot in Central Perk every time they visited?
‘We just put a little reserved sign on the coffee table and it was reserved for them,’ Greg said.
It’s really just as simple as that.
12) The iconic frame on the door of Monica’s apartment was actually a mistake
Remember the classic gold frame on the back of Monica’s purple door? Yeah, that was an accident.
Greg revealed: ‘The glass on the back of the frame had broken and while I was dressing up the set for the pilot I asked one of my guys to put it on the back of the door and open the peephole.
‘I kinda liked the way it looked and that’s how it ended up. It’s like a wonderful mistake that’s kinda famous I guess. That’s exactly what happened.’
13) Each storyline revolved around a wardrobe problem
From Ross’ leather pants to Monica’s boots, Friends always involved clothes and accessories in some shape or form in every episode.
‘The storyline revolved around some sort of wardrobe issue,’ Debra told us. ‘Yes, in every script, especially in the first three years.’
She continued: ‘It was funny because the writers were killing us as there were nine and 10-day scripts and they were completely wardrobe centric.
‘One day I said to the writers and they were like, “Well we love you guys so much we just wanted to make sure we had storylines that included you.” They kind of went over-the-top.’
14) Carol and Susan’s wedding had subtle suffrage references
Carol and Susan’s wedding was not only a monumental moment for the show but was one of the first same-sex weddings to ever air on mainstream television.
The episode was packed with subtle nods to the suffragettes, but unless you were paying close attention you would never have realised.
‘There were loads of references to the women’s suffrage movement and progress that we’d made in feminism that I tried to express in the wardrobe in The One With The Lesbian Wedding,’ Debra revealed.
‘That’s why I went with this equestrian vibe because I thought it would reflect the turn of the century feeling and people would be reminded of that time when women were speaking out to get rights to vote.
‘It was interesting that the public were as savvy to some of these really subliminal references.’
15) Jennifer Aniston has one of the Central Perk neon signs
Jennifer managed to swipe one of the classic signed lights from Central Perk after Friends had wrapped.
‘Jennifer has a neon from Central Perk and Marta Kauffman [showrunner] has a few collectibles,’ Greg said. ‘But for the most part Warner Brothers assets has every set so they ended up with the dog, the sofas, Monica’s apartment, the Central Perk set and more.’
16) Gladys is an actual artwork by an actual artist which wasn’t intentionally a joke before Friends
Yep, you read that right.
Phoebe’s three-dimensional woman artwork aka Gladys was created by an artist and not for the show.
‘That was a piece that I found and thought it would be really funny being on a wall art in her apartment,’ Greg laughed.
‘That ended up becoming a story point in the show. The Smelly Cat painting was another piece I had created based on the script. So all those pieces were to her character or to their character.’
17) The set director played a removal man in the last episode
Greg was actually one of the removal men in the final episode of Friends.
‘I’m the guy moving the dog out of the apartment in the final episode,’ he revealed. ‘Monica tips the moving guy and that’s kinda ironic that I’m that guy moving out the last piece of furniture.’
Recalling the scenes, he chuckled: ‘It was great, I just wish I got paid for it right. I’d still be making residual money.’
‘Marta and Kevin [Bright] were like, You deserve to be in this scene”,’ Greg continued. ‘That was nice, it was me and a couple of my guys.
‘They offered it up and we took it. It was an emotional night. That night was an emotional night for everybody.’
18) Monica and Ross nailed the dance routine first time, obviously
The One With The Routine is an iconic episode and Monica and Ross’s dance moves will never be forgotten.
‘They rehearsed it for a day or two and they were pretty darn good,’ Greg said. ‘They knew what they were doing.
‘That was the fun part of the show.’
19) Chrissie Hynde performed a full set for the Friends cast
The Pretenders founder Chrissie Hynde performed for on-set before shooting her season two scenes in The One With The Baby On The Bus.
‘She ended up giving us a 30-minute private concert on stage before show night in the dress rehearsal,’ Greg told us. ‘For me, that was phenomenal. In front of two dozen people.’
20) The Friends cast would request outfits but they’d always get shut down
As Friends got more and more popular, the cast wanted more influence on what their character wore.
‘Everything was so meticulously orchestrated from my perspective,’ Debra told us. ‘I charted everything and did everything by colour and they weren’t really aware of what my system was.
‘There were times when someone would say, “I don’t feel like wearing this, can I wear this?”, And I’d be like, “No, because it would throw us off the pallette.”‘
21) Each Friend only had 15 minutes in wardrobe each week
Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, Ross and Rachel all had their signature style and a plethora of iconic looks over the years.
Somehow, costume designer Debra managed to pull their fabulous looks off each week having only spent a quarter of an hour with each cast member.
‘We never had more than 15 minutes with a character,’ Debra told us. ‘They would run in on Wednesdays for a fitting and we had very little time before they needed to be back out.
‘Some of them didn’t come in until Thursday and we had pre-shoot on Thursday and would film on Friday.
‘We were right up to the edge every single week.’
22) You should have looked closer at the Etch A Sketch in Joey’s apartment
Remember how the doodle-board in Joey and Chandler’s apartment would always change?
‘The Etch A Sketch on the back of the door was always a tribute to what was going on in the week,’ Greg said.
‘That was something for us as well as set dressing.’
23) Ross and Rachel were never meant to go on a break
The most on-off couple in the history of television were never meant to go on a break at all.
‘I would say initially when [Ross and Rachel] was planned it wasn’t planned that way, that came a little bit later,’ Kevin told us about the pair going their separate ways.
‘It allowed us to have fun with the show and give people something to root for.’
He added: ‘We were well aware the audience wanted to keep them together but everything that was keeping them apart – we realised when we got them together when the first kiss happened we go, “Wow, the air has kind of gone out of the balloon.”
‘There wasn’t that sexual tension anymore.’
24. Friends director wasn’t a fan of Sean Penn’s cameo
Two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn came crashing into Phoebe’s life as Ursula’s fiancé Eric, dressed as the solar system for Monica and Rachel’s Halloween party.
Sadly though, producer and director Kevin didn’t think the actor’s cameo was out of this world.
‘I think the least successful one was Sean Penn on the show,’ Kevin admitted.
‘Just the style of the production wasn’t what he was used to, doing a show like that, so there was a little deer in the headlight effect.’
25) Fans actually loved the pink bridesmaid dresses
The One With Barry And Mindy’s Wedding saw Rachel and two bridesmaids wear the most outrageous pink dresses – and surprisingly, fans couldn’t get enough of them.
‘When we did the bubblegum pink bridesmaid dresses for the girls, they were horrible,’ Debra laughed.
‘The intention was to be completely comedic. You’d think you’d do a piece like that and would get messages saying that was really funny, but I got hundreds of emails from girls in the south who actually liked them.
‘That was really cool.’
26) The cast didn’t want to film one particular ‘incestuous’ scene
It’s been revealed the Friends cast pushed back against one controversial storyline, with writer Adam Chase revealing the gang weren’t keen on Rachel and Joey briefly dating.
‘The cast was very much against it,’ he told the Guardian. ‘It felt very incestuous to them.’
27) The show’s biggest romance was unplanned
It was obviously the biggest romance of the show (more than Rachel and Ross’ we’d say), but it turns out Chandler and Monica weren’t going to be an endgame pairing at first.
In fact, their relationship blossomed because of how the audience reacted to the initial reveal after their fling in London, at the end of season four.
‘It shook us,’ writer Andrew Reich shared. ‘We all just kind of looked at each other like, “Wow, this is much bigger than we thought.”’
Their relationship quickly transformed from a holiday romance to something much deeper, with the characters tying the knot at the end of the seventh season, and welcoming twins via a surrogate in the finale.
28) Monica and Rachel’s fridge was fully functioning
While the most famous set of the show wasn’t really a flat in New York, one part of Monica and Rachel’s home was real: a fully functioning fridge.
According to ScreenRant, the fridge in the apartment worked and was even used to store drinks for the cast.
29) Gunther never made a single coffee on set – even though he really was a barista
James Michael Tyler, who played the beloved Gunther in Friends, once revealed that he was a real-life barista when he got his role.
He’d been working at one of the last independent coffee shops in Hollywood since the 90s, but never actually made coffee on set.
‘The espresso machine wasn’t plugged in because they can be kind of loud, but that was a real antique coffee machine. I never actually made one coffee!’ he told BuzzFeed.
30) The actor who played Joey appeared on the show with him
The actor who was nearly cast as Joey actually did appear on screen with him.
Louis Mandylor went on to play Joey’s fake identical twin in ‘The One with Unagi’, exec producer Kevin Bright revealed, according to ScreenRant.
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