Jennifer Aniston is lifting the curtain on life behind the scenes of Friends. It turns out Hollywood royalty didn’t always walk onto Stage 24 with confidence.
Nervous Guest Stars
Speaking with co-star Lisa Kudrow for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Aniston said she was stunned by how jittery some of the show’s most famous guest stars were.
She recalled, “The movie stars that came on Friends. Brad, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts. Isabella Rossellini. We had so many – Sean Penn. They were always nervous. Remember? I always found it fascinating how nervous they were.”
Kudrow agreed, saying the sitcom’s rhythm was unlike anything actors from film or theatre were used to.
She said, “Yes. Nervous. Well, because what’s the tone? It’s not theatre; it’s for TV. It’s not a movie. What the hell is this?”
Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay, once tried to explain the style to a confused guest.
She recounted, “And I remember someone asked one time. I didn’t know how to explain it, so I said, ‘Oh, just talk louder. Same intention, just…’”
Aniston (Rachel Green) jumped in with a laugh, “Just louder!”
Rewatching Episodes
The pair also reflected on their own relationship with the show after it became a global phenomenon. Kudrow admitted she avoided watching Friends for years, only recently revisiting episodes she’d never seen.
She said, “[I] loved it with all my heart. I’d end up sitting there for three hours, and then it’s like two in the morning: ‘I need to go to bed! This is bad!”
“But, oh, it made me so happy to watch it. And, man, you’re all good. Holy cow! You were really good, Jennifer.”
Aniston remembered that in the early days, the cast would gather to watch new episodes together, but Kudrow said she couldn’t bring herself to do it alone.
She said, “There were whole episodes that I hadn’t seen. I just couldn’t sit there at home and have anybody walk by seeing me watching a show that I’m in. Because it felt embarrassing to me.”
The beloved sitcom, which ran from 1994 to 2004, also starred Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), David Schwimmer (Ross Geller), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), and the late Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing).