AS TV'S TOP SITCOM NEARS THE END OF ITS EIGHTH SEASON � AND GEARS UP FOR A NINTH � WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE FRIENDSHIPS BEHIND THE LAUGHS
BY JEREMY HELLIGAR
We'll be there for them.
All 24.5 million of us. That�s how many Americans on average are tuning in to NBC every Thursday night to check out the latest antics of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross, making Friends this season's number one prime-time series � and perhaps the last hurrah of truly Must-See TV. With many Americans craving familiar faces and comfort-food entertainment after September 11, we need old Friends more than ever.
But before the current surge in ratings (the series' highest since 1996), the long-running sitcom had already become one of the most successful shows ever. Even the giddy theme song was a No. 1 radio hit. And "I'll Be There for You" is nothing if not accurate. Sure, these friends bicker, toss sarcastic wisecracks at each other (Chandler, take a bow) and make the occasional love connection (with at least one hookup ending in marriage and another in pregnancy), but you'd be hard-pressed to find a tighter group of buddies.
The actors who have played the characters for the past eight years might qualify. OK, so chances are you won�t run into Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe) and Matthew Perry (Chandler) chilling and sipping coffee together � every day! � at the local Starbucks. And no doubt David Schwimmer (Ross) and Matt LeBlanc (Joey) wouldn't just show up unannounced (without knocking, for that matter) at the home of Courteney Cox Arquette (Monica). But by all accounts, including their own, they aren't just acting close.
"We've been through a lot together: marriages, babies, fame, losing parents, drug addiction," Jennifer said last year. "It's been an intense experience."
In some ways the camaraderie has been therapeutic. "Nobody else understands what we're going through except the six of us, so we have remained close," Matt has said. "If I complain to my other friends about my situation or how I'm chased by paparazzi every time I go out in public, I get a sarcastic 'My heart goes out to you' or a 'Shut the hell up and stop complaining.'"
The chemistry among the six stars is immediately obvious to anyone who works with them. "It's like hanging out with brothers and sisters. We all know each other and each other's families,� says James Michael Tyler, who plays Gunther (the lovesick manager of Central Perk who only has eyes for Rachel). "They can anticipate how someone's going to react in a scene. It's just effortless. It�s a joy to watch them work. They make it look so easy, and that comes from knowing each other so well."
Although marriages, relationships and happening careers have made the six less inseparable these days than when Friends first hit the air, they still keep tabs on each other. Everyone except Matt, who was shooting a film on location, attended Jennifer's marriage to movie hunk Brad Pitt in July 2000 (Matthew jokingly described it as "the most romantic night of my life"), and they all went to Courteney's June 1999 nuptials to actor David Arquette (Jennifer and Lisa helped plan it and pick out Courteney's Valentino silk-crepe gown). And during the workweek, the guys will normally do something like break out Super Mario Bros. together at lunchtime, while the ladies play catch-up.
"The girls are very close and always will be," Jennifer has said. "Try getting us out of our dressing rooms when one of us is needing to talk � it's impossible. Our poor [assistant directors] are saying, 'We need you downstairs.' And we're like, 'This is priority. Friend in need!'"
The friends rushed into serious support mode in 1997 when Matthew entered rehab for an addiction to Vicodin, a prescription painkiller. "When he was going through that, Courteney Cox, particularly, was like a mother to him," June Gable, who plays Joey's chain-smoking agent, told People magazine in 2000. "And everyone, all the cast, supports each other. They're just there, like rocks."
The situation need not be critical. When Lisa was pregnant with her son, Julian, now three, her cast mates rallied around her. Matt offered to baby-sit, and Courteney and Jennifer threw her a baby shower at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles. And their devotion didn't dip after the birth. "I can�t believe how much they listen to me talk about my baby," said Lisa in 1999, "and I thank them for that."
In a Hollywood world where frosty sets are commonplace, this one is remarkably free of backstabbing episodes and ripe-for-The-National-Enquirer star trips. "It makes it a lot easier," says James Michael. "I've been on some other shows where just the tension of getting things done keeps people in a work frame of mind. Here, everyone's so professional, yet they're having fun. So it's not really like going to work � it's like going to play."
Makeup artist Beth Katz, who has been with the show since its second season, concurs. "It's a really nice, happy atmosphere. Aside from the fact that they're nice people, it's a great environment to work in. They're all so good at their jobs, so there's no conflict. They all have a little powwow circle before they start taping the show, which is really supportive. They always like starting the show as a team."
No exceptions. So visitors beware: Slight any of them at your own risk. "If someone comes on, like a guest star, and, like, alienates one of us, then the other five of us just shut them out," Matt has said. "If you come on the show and you're mean to one person, then that's it, you're done. You get no support from any of us."
Their unity has been a conscious effort from the start. Although Courteney (whose biggest pre-Friends claim to fame was playing Michael J. Fox�s girlfriend on the '80s sitcom Family Ties) was the show's best-known star when it debuted in 1994, the cast of then virtual unknowns got equal billing and insisted on being treated, well, equally. Intent on forging strong off-the-clock bonds, they packed up and took a road trip to Las Vegas before the first episode aired that was not unlike the Vegas trek at the end of season five (the one where a smashed Ross and Rachel got hitched). "We got drunk," Jennifer has said of the experience. "Lisa made me laugh so hard I almost peed my pants."
By the end of the second season, these sure-to-be-lifelong friendships were cemented, and the girls' off-camera roles were pretty much defined. "Lisa's the thinker; Jennifer's the feeler; and I'm the doer," Courteney once explained. "Together," Jennifer continued, "we are the perfect person."
The guys agree. "It might sound sickly, but our goal as a group is to enjoy each other's company and not be too competitive," said David in 1996. "We are good friends... although some are closer than others. I'm closer to Matt LeBlanc, who plays Joey, than [I am to] Lisa Kudrow, who plays Phoebe, but Lisa and I still go out to dinner together."
Granted, it hasn�t always been easy to maintain the good vibes. "There was this backlash after our second year on the show," Lisa said last year. "We were overexposed. We weren't used to being actors who had choices." A few bad ones: approving the sale of Friends beach towels, cookbooks and sleepwear, doing countless group magazine cover shoots and appearing together in a Diet Coke commercial. When the television ad hit the air, critics really sharpened their pens.
"After that, there was nothing but negative press, pitting us against each other, in terms of who was getting what movies and so on," Lisa recalled. "We all got slammed, but we talked about everything, especially us girls, and we worked through those things."
That includes money issues. When it comes time to renew their contracts and decide whether or not to stay on the sitcom, the six have always insisted on doing so as a team. Friends who negotiate together stay together � or so it would seem. "It's like a pie, and if you take a piece out of the pie, it's less than a pie," Jennifer told the Today show in 2000.
Ratings climbed at the beginning of the current season � and the fans may have choked up at the thought of saying good-bye. Who would have thought NBC would be willing to cough up $1 million an episode for each of the stars (up from $750,000 an episode this season)? And would any of the actors actually want to come back for a ninth season � at any price? Why not make some new friends? Perhaps the cast is as hooked as we are � although not necessarily on just the story lines.
"I don't know that we're all done with [the show]," Lisa said about the cast's previous contract negotiations in 2000. "We all get along so well. I don't know that I was done seeing Courteney and Jennifer every day, having lunch with them every day."
So once again, the show must � and will � go on. "We're all with Friends until Friends dies," Jennifer told Rolling Stone. "If one of us goes, we all go. One of us wouldn't leave. It wouldn't be the show it is without each of us."
All for one and one for all. That's what friends are for.
The Cast of Friends: vital stats
NAME: Jennifer Joanne Aniston
BIRTH DATE: February 11, 1969
HOMETOWN: Sherman Oaks, Calif.
FAMILY: parents: John and Nancy (divorced); one older half-brother, John
EDUCATION: graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts in New York City
ON THE R�SUM�: waitress, telemarketer, messenger, receptionist
FIRST TV GIG: a spoiled stepsister in the Fox summer replacement series Molloy (1990)
PET: a corgi-mix dog named Norman
LOVE LIFE: dated Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz and actor Tate Donovan; married Brad Pitt
HOBBIES: playing dominoes, charades and table tennis with her husband
NAME: Matthew L. Perry
BIRTH DATE: August 19, 1969
HOMETOWN: Williamstown, Mass.
FAMILY: parents: John and Suzanne (divorced); four younger half-sisters and one younger half-brother
EDUCATION: attended Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and Ashbury College in Ottawa
ON THE R�SUM�: number two-ranked junior tennis player
FIRST TV GIG: the short-lived Fox series Second Chance (1987)
LOVE LIFE: dated Julia Roberts and TV executive Jamie Tarses
HOBBIES: watching films in the full-size movie theater in his Hollywood Hills home
NAME: Matthew LeBlanc
BIRTH DATE: July 25, 1967
HOMETOWN: Newton, Mass.
FAMILY: parents: Paul and Pat (divorced)
EDUCATION: attended Newton North High School in Newton, Mass.
ON THE R�SUM�: commercials for Levi�s 501 Jeans, Coca-Cola, Heinz Ketchup and Doritos
FIRST TV GIG: the drama TV 101 (1988)
PET: a dog named Lady
LOVE LIFE: engaged to model Melissa McKnight since 1998
HOBBIES: racing cars, mountain biking, landscape photography
NAME: Courteney Cox Arquette
BIRTH DATE: June 15, 1964
HOMETOWN: Birmingham, Ala.
FAMILY: parents: Courteney and Richard (he died in 2001); one older brother and two older sisters
EDUCATION: majored in architecture at Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C.; dropped out after one year
ON THE R�SUM�: teen model for Tiger Beat and the covers of young-adult romance novels
FIRST TV GIG: the daytime soap As the World Turns (1984), playing a friend of Marisa Tomei�s character
LOVE LIFE: dated Michael Keaton for five years; married David Arquette in 1999
HOBBIES: fixing things around the house (shades of Monica!)
NAME: Elizabeth V. Kudrow
BIRTH DATE: July 30, 1963
HOMETOWN: Encino, Calif.
FAMILY: parents: Lee and Nedra; one older brother and one older sister
EDUCATION: graduated from Vassar College with a bachelor�s degree in biology
ON THE R�SUM�: member of an improv group
FIRST TV GIG: Cheers (1989), playing a girl who hits on bartender Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson)
LOVE LIFE: dated Conan O�Brien; married advertising executive Michel Stern in 1995 (son Julian born in 1998)
HOBBIES: playing tennis, watching E! television
NAME: David L. Schwimmer
BIRTH DATE: November 2, 1966
HOMETOWN: Queens
FAMILY: parents: Arthur and Arlene; one older sister, Ellie
EDUCATION: graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor�s degree in speech
ON THE R�SUM�: cast as the fairy godmother in a Jewish version of Cinderella
FIRST TV GIG: the ABC-TV movie A Deadly Silence (1989)
LOVE LIFE: dated singer Natalie Imbruglia and actress Mili Avital
HOBBIES: volleyball, studying history, theater (he created the Lookingglass Company in Chicago)