CASTING the male roles for Friends was somewhat easier than finding people to play the three female characters."We knew how good David Schwimmer was because he had auditioned for a project we'd done the year before, so he was at the forefront all the time for Ross," David Crane says. Crane and Marta Kauffman were familiar also with Matthew Perry's talents, after he had guest-starred in their comedy series Dream On. They didn't approach him, however, because he had starred in a pilot for another production company. "If that show got up, they had first option on Matthew, so we'd have had to start looking again," Crane says. "And to be honest, we also thought Chandler would be a relatively easy role to cast, with its load of jokes and wisecracks. "But when we couldn't find anyone we liked, we finally asked Matthew to audition and he was the only person who made Chandler Bing come alive."

Matt LeBlanc was the last of the six cast for Friends.
Crane admits that he and Kauffman had another actor in mind for the role of Joey. "But Matt made the part funny in a very specific way. He brought a sweetness to the role we had never imagined." Having chosen six individual actors, there was always the chance that together they wouldn't have any on-screen chemistry. "But the day we saw the first run-through, it sent chills down my spine," Crane says. "It looked like they had been together forever."

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The famous six

DAVID Crane recalls that he and Marta Kauffman's search in 1993-94 for six actors to star in Friends was a "long and hard affair"

"We went through more than a thousand applicants for each role," he says. "We often thought we were never going to cast the show well. "It wasn't as if we saw eight guys who could play Chandler or six girls who were right for Phoebe, and pick the best one. "We couldn't find anyone who really got us excited to play Phoebe, until Lisa (Kudrow) finally walked in and we knew immediately we had found her."
Kudrow recalls she had to come back three times before landing the role.

"But I didn't mind, because I didn't often get called back and I didn't think I did anything spectacular," she says. "I met everyone at the first reading and was kind of nervous, because I hadn't heard of any of them, except for Courteney, who I'd seen in (the movie) Ace Ventura." Crane saw Courteney Cox Arquette as the perfect Rachel, but she pleaded with him to be allowed to try for Monica, won the role, with Jennifer Aniston landing Rachel.

"I was torn between reading for Rachel and Monica," Aniston says. "But Rachel felt right. Two hours after I'd read for Rachel, the producers rang me at home and said it was a done deal, and I was beyond thrilled." While delighted to be a part of a worldwide hit, Cox Arquette says fame has come at a price. The constant scrutiny from magazines looking for a scoop has taken some adjusting to. "They are forever saying I'm too thin or anorexic. You really can't win," she says. "If I want my lower body to look the way I like it, then my face can look gaunt. But if my face is full, I don't like the way my lower body looks." Kudrow admits it will be sad to say goodbye. "It will be horrible because we love each other and this whole thing has been so good," she says. "But we've promised ourselves that we won't run the show into the ground, so we are just going to be brave and face up to it when it happens."

Q&A - MARTA KAUFFMAN, DAVID CRANE AND KEVIN BRIGHT

Q. How do you divide your duties?

Kauffman: Well, we talk about it, and then we let Kevin do it.  : )

Bright: It's kind of simple. David and Marta are the
writer-creators. After that mission has been accomplished,
David spends much of his time in the writers' room; Marta likes to split her time between the writing room and working on the floor with the actors and directors. My time is split between the editing room, also supervising the directors and directing a bunch of episodes myself. ... I tend to get into the business area, but we share those responsibilities.

Crane (on the writing): Each show has 10-12 people working
on it. My time is mostly spent going from room to room for the different shows, hearing stories, giving thoughts on scripts.

Kauffman: We read every draft, every outline, we give notes on all that. I spend as much time in the rooms as I can. David
spends all his time (there).

Q. How did ''Friends'' evolve? Was it based on your own lives?

Crane: Not literally.

Kauffman: Somewhat. David and I were part of a group of six
people in New York, all in our 20s -- very different group of
characters.

Crane: We had just finished ''Dream On,'' which was about a
guy in his 30s who had made a lot of choices in his life and was living with the consequences. We thought it would be fun to make a show about people in their 20s who were still making those choices.

Kauffman: Also, in ''Dream On'' Brian Benben had to be in
every scene. We thought it would be exciting to work with an
ensemble cast.

Q. Do you folks earn as much as the ''Friends'' cast? (laughter)

Kauffmann: We work harder

Q. How did ''Veronica's Closet'' originate?

Bright: The studio came to us and said that Kirstie Alley was
looking for a project.

Kauffman: And we said, ''Pick us! Pick us!''

Crane: We were giant fans. We thought she was the most
talented, funny lady.

Kauffman: We sat with her and talked about what she wanted
to do, took that and tried to make it an idea that we could write.

Q. How did ''Jesse'' happen?

Bright: It was created by Ira Ungerleider, who was a writer on
''Friends.'' He came to us with this idea of his own (about a
single mother in an eccentric family) which we liked a lot. We
got Christina, and it fell into place.

Q. Having three shows in the best place in television is a big
responsibility. How do you handle it?

Kauffman: When we were in New York and we heard that the
third show had been picked up for Thursday night, I started to
hyperventilate. Kevin made me see that this is a good thing.
Right, Kevin?

Bright: It's a good thing because this doesn't happen. We've
achieved something you couldn't even dream about. The
thought that you could have three shows on the same network
on the most-watched night in television is just incredible.

Kauffman: It's also intimidating. It's a lot of responsibility.

Crane: We can only do what we've been doing, which is to try
to do the best work we can. We have very strong people
running the three shows. All we can do is hope and trust that
everybody does their best work. Beyond that, what can you do?

Bright: Try to enjoy it as much as we can. All of us have been
around the block; we understand this kind of stuff is fleeting.
Because we have three shows on now doesn't mean we'll have
three shows at the end of the season

LONDON INTERVIEW

Kevin - London might have gotten started mainly because we felt like while the show was popular we needed to take advantage of it and go someplace.  Do the show on an exotic location and have a good time.

David - We knew the show was popular in England so it seemed like a natural fit.

David - We wanted it to still feel lile Friends so we wanted to shoot a lot of it in front of an audience and it seemed like a really exciting oppurtunity to shoot an American sitcom in front of a British audience.

David - We were really afraid going over that either they'd be far more sedate, they wouldn't laugh...

Marta - They were great

David - They were great

Marta - They waited in line for hours

Marta -  You know, we didn't have a single bad audience in
London

David - Also, there was a greater sense of event, I think it
energized everybody...the actors, writers...

Marta - We missed Lisa

David - Yeah

Marta - We missed Lisa not being there.  That was probably the only drawback I can think of.

David - It was also interesting because we had shot about 1/3 of it here....

Marta - and a little of it on the streets in London

David - It was just a really gratifying experience, pretty much
everything we had hoped to get out of it, we got.