While the show itself is amazing, the secrets behind the scenes are no less intriguing and fascinating. Indeed, we bet that even true Friends fans will be baffled by some of the behind the scenes secrets and facts they will read below.
Can you imagine the TV show Friends being called anything else but Friends? You probably can’t. And yet the show was almost called something else – in the early 90’s the creators of the now iconic show, David Krane and Marta Kauffman, wrote a pitch for the show but titled it “Insomnia Cafe”.
Chandler and Phoebe were going to be only supporting characters, appearing on the show once in a while but certainly not in every episode.
Matt Le Blanc has recently revealed that he actually dislocated his shoulder while filming the previous episode – The One Where No One’s Ready – and thus his injury had to be written into the following episode.
The actor directed the following episodes – The One on the Last Night (1999), The One with Rachel’s Assistant (2000), The One with Ross’s Library Book (2000), The One with All the Candy (2000), The One with the Truth About London (2001), The One with the Red Sweater (2001), The One with the Str*pper (2001), The One Where Joey Dates Rachel (2002), The One with Phoebe’s Birthday Dinner (2002) and finally, The One with the Birth Mother (2004).
The dog actually belonged to the actress Jennifer Aniston who received it as a good luck charm when she first started filming the show. Everyone remembers Joey and Chandler rolling into their apartment on it, so we’re glad it made it there.
Willis appeared on the show for free – he actually donated the money he made on the show to charity. Rumor has it that this was Perry’s doing. At the time, the two were filming The Whole Nine Yards. Perry thought that the film would come in number one at the box office. Willis did not agree. The two made a bet and Willis lost. To keep his side of the bet Willis apparently had to appear on Friends for free.
Kudrow found it incredibly difficult to play guitar at first. She has said – “I didn’t like the guitar. I wasn’t getting it. So I think I even asked, ‘What if she plays the bongos?’”
You see, back before Friends aired, Lisa Kudrow played Ursula Buffay in Mad About You. Ursula was a terrible waitress at Riff’s Bar that was often visited by Paul and Jamie. However, Friends writers decided to take this a step further and do a crossover between the two shows – they decided to make Ursula and Phoebe estranged twin sisters.
The writers of the show said – “When we were originally conceiving the show, we actually thought that Monica and Joey might become a thing and then we cast it, and just went ‘that’s not the right energy’ because now they’re faces and they’re people.”
This storyline may have not existed if it wasn’t for Lisa Kudrow’s actual pregnancy.
“That’s the only job I ever auditioned for twice. I thought it was so good, they had rejected me once, I said, ‘I’m going back, I’m gonna do it again, I’m gonna try it again.’”
Did you know that before filming every episode the cast of six would lock themselves in an empty room where they would huddle together and wish each other good luck while filming? That’s a sweet tradition and one that no doubt brought the six actors closer together.
Can you imagine Cox as Rachel? We can’t either so we’re very glad that she turned it down and opted to play Monica instead – “For some reason, I thought I related more to Monica, which maybe it’s because I do. ‘I’m very similar to her… I’m not as clean as Monica, but I am neat. And I’m not as competitive, even though some people, my partner Johnny McDaid, would say I am.’”
Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) it was accidentally broken by a crew member. The producers thought it looked good the way it was however and decided against replacing it. And we’re glad that they did for nowadays it is one of the most popular Friends props that bought and replicated all over the world.
In reality, six versions of Phoebe’s dollhouse were made by the Friends props department because the plot involved destroying the dollhouse with fire.
The pair got married in 1999 and even though they’re no longer together (they divorced in 2013) back then the producers wanted to commemorate the special occasion and so they gave everyone the last name of “Arquette” (such as Courteney Cox Arquette and Jennifer Aniston Arquette) in the opening credits of The One After Vegas. The episode was also dedicated to the happy couple – “For Courteney and David who did get married.”
However, while most scenes were shot in front of an audience, cliffhangers, such as the scene where Ross says Rachel’s name when he’s marrying Emily, were always shot in privacy – “We always remove the audience for the cliffhangers because, obvious reasons, you don’t want to spoil it.”
Aniston has said – “I had a couple of issues that I was dealing with. I wanted it to end when people still loved us and we were on a high. And then I was also feeling like, ‘How much more of Rachel do I have in me?’” We are obviously extremely happy that she did come back, because really if you take one of them out of the mix, the entire thing would just fall apart.
“No one was really a big fan of that theme song”. In addition, Aniston revealed that they all hated shooting the fountain scene because it just felt weird – “We felt it was a little…I don’t know. Dancing in a pond? A fountain felt sort of odd. We did it because we were told to.”
Apparently, back then the co-creator Marta Kauffman had just lost her mother and she was the one who pitched the strange storyline.
