53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
No matter how many times you’ve watched and rewatched the series, only the biggest superfans will already know these….
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share1. It wasn't always called Friends. Other names were Insomnia Café, Friends Like Us, and Six of One, before everyone settled on Friends.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share2. The credits were not shot in New York. The opening was shot at Warner Bros. Studios in California. There’s a reason you’ve never been able to find the fountain on the East Coast.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share3. No one was really that big a fan of the theme song. According to Jennifer Aniston, “We felt it was a little…I don’t know…dancing in a pond? A fountain felt sort of odd.” She says the only reason they did it because they “were told to.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share4. Before the pilot aired, the cast went together to Las Vegas. They dined at Spago inside Caesar’s Palace to enjoy their “last shot at anonymity.” The cast would return some six years later to shoot Mr. Rachel’s wedding to Mrs. Ross (and Joey’s movie fail, among other things).
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share5. Courtney Cox's character Monica is mainly her acting like herself in real life.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share6. Phoebe and Chandler were originally written as supporting roles, not leads. So there were originally only four friends.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share7. Joey and Monica were supposed to get together. According to Kauffman, the studio audience’s response to Monica and Chandler first getting together was so overwhelming, the show went in “a different direction.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share8. The names of the characters represent "All My Children." Chandler is for the Chandler family, Rachel’s last name is for Janet Green, Ross is for Ross Chandler (LOL), Monica is for Monique (Daisy Cortland), Joey is for Joseph “Joey” Martin, and Phoebe is for Phoebe Tyler Wallingford.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share9. David Schwimmer never had to audition for Ross. As Kauffman explained in 2012, “Schwimmer had auditioned the year before for a pilot we were making, and he just stuck in our heads. That was an offer. No audition."
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share10. Phoebe was supposed to be a goth girl. Phoebe was originally pitched as a “goth girl,” which prompted Janeane Garofalo to turn down the role. “There is some truth to it, but not exactly that,” she later explained. “Long ago before Friends was Friends, when it was in its infancy, it was a show called Friends Like Us, and I was being considered for a role, like a goth girl, which I think morphed into Phoebe.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share11. Gunther was a real life barista. “I had a job at a coffee shop called The Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood, which is still around and one of the last independent coffee shops that hasn’t been taken over or whatnot," James Michael Tyler told BuzzFeed in 2014. “I was one of their first baristas—I think I started there in 1990 or so.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share12. Hank Azaria auditioned for Joey. Twice. It’s okay. He was destined to play David and go to Minsk for a really long time.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share13. Jane Lynch auditioned for Phoebe. So did Kathy Griffin. Obviously, we’re going to need to see those tapes now. (Jane eventually did appear on the show as a real estate agent in the final season.)
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share14. The identity of the actor who played the ugly naked man was not revealed until 2016. Thanks to a Huffington Post investigation. Memorize this name for your next trivia night: Jon Haugen. We applaud you.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share15. Paul Rudd got the role of mike after a casting director wrote “dreamy” in her notes.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share16. There was an intervention for Jennifer Anniston's tardiness to set.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share17. The episode "The One Where No One's Ready" takes place solely in Monica's apartment due to budget restrictions.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share18. Lisa Kudrow hated the guitar at first and wanted to play the bongos instead.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share19. Bruce Willis guest starred on the show after losing a bet with Matthew Perry who played Chandler.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share20. Despite playing Ross's younger sister, Courtney Cox is two years older than David Schwimmer in real life.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share21. The orange sofa in central perk was found in the basement of Warner Bros. Studios.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share22. The apartment numbers change on the doors if you look closely enough. The change was made after the writers realized an apartment with the number 5 did not denote a unit on a higher floor in New York City. Chandler and Joey’s apartment also changed from 4 to 19.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share23. In the scene where Phoebe plays Ms. Pac Man, she's actually not swearing. “Oh! I don’t know if I was allowed to actually swear,” Lisa Kudrow revealed in a Reddit AMA. “We pre-shot that part, and I think I remember Kevin Bright, our executive producer, laughing and saying, ‘I know, but no one should even be able to read it on your lips.’”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share24. For a long time, friends was not allowed to show even a condom wrapper during the 8 p.m. slot.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share25. The white dog statue that Chandler and Joey have in their apartment actually belongs to Jennifer Anniston in real life. The dog was given to her as a good luck charm at the start of Friends.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share26. Lisa Kudrow's pregnancy was written into the show. “Here’s what was difficult about having a child: When he visited the set, it was hard to be in character,” Kudrow later said. “Because I didn’t want him to ever experience me as anything OTHER than his mother.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share27. Cole Sprouse who played Ben had a huge crush on Jennifer Anniston. “I had a really, really hard time working with Aniston because I was so in love with her,” he told the New York Post in 2017. “I was infatuated. I was speechless—I’d get all bubbly and forget my lines and completely blank…It was so difficult.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share28. Matt Leblanc’s offscreen shoulder injury was written into the episode. “Yeah, but get this,” he later told Glamour. “The audience was full of Diet Coke contest winners flown in from all over the country, and I did two scenes, popped my shoulder, and they had to cancel it. So they all got flown home and then flown back for another week. So it cost Coca-Cola a lot more than they anticipated. What are you going to do?"
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share29. Everyone’s last name in the opening for “the one after vegas” included “arquette" in celebration of the newlyweds Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette, who were married from 1999 to 2013.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share30. Matthew Perry’s Dad made a cameo in season 4. John Bennett Perry played Joshua’s dad in “The One with Rachel’s New Dress.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share31. Before he was Frank Jr., Giovanni Ribisi had an uncredited role as "condom boy" in season 2. The one who accidentally throws a condom into Phoebe’s guitar case.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share32. When Joey and Rachel got together, the cast went to the creators with their concerns. As Matt LeBlanc said in a 2012 Vanity Fair feature, “It felt wildly inappropriate. That’s how close we all were to the character. I was like, ‘That’s Rachel. She was supposed to be with Ross. Wait a minute.’ Everybody got super-defensive about the whole thing.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share33. Courteney Cox is the only friend to not receive an emmy nomination for her work on the show. Even Christina Pickles, who played Monica’s mom Judy, got a nomination for her guest role one year.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share34. Ross mentions he's 29 years old for three consecutive seasons. For three consecutive seasons (3, 4, 5), Ross mentions that he’s 29. (In season 5, he actually says he’s getting divorced twice before he’s 30.) Naturally, Ross also has two birthdays on Friends: Oct. 18 and some time in December.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share35. Cliffhangers were never filmed in front of a studio audience for reasons avoiding spoilers.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share36. Jo Favreau originally auditioned for Chandler. But don’t worry, Favreau's still got a soft spot for Pete after all these years. “Pete Becker was a man of tremendous focus and conviction. He set his heart to being the Ultimate Fighting Champion and I have no doubt that he gave it his all. I’m only sorry that that chapter was never closed by the Friends writers because I’ll always have to live with the uncertainty of what his fate held.”
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share37. Gunther's first line didn't come until after 33 episodes were filmed. His line - "Yeah." Gunther also didn’t have a name until the middle of the second season, and his hair was bleached every week for 10 years because James Michael Tyler’s hair is brown IRL.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share38. Janice's appearances were always kept secret from the audience in order to get the biggest shock when she came out.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share39. Justin Timberlake asked for a cameo, but unfortunately there was no fitting part for him.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share40. A relationship between Joey and Phoebe was pitched. In 2016, Matt LeBlanc told EW, “Toward the end, we actually pitched the idea that Joey and Phoebe had been having casual sex the entire time. We’d go back and shoot all the historical scenes and just before a moment that everyone recognizes, there’s Joey and Phoebe coming out of a broom closet together. But they were like, ‘Nah.’
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share41. The finale caused Matt LeBlanc to start smoking again due to so much anxiety. “I had quit smoking for four years, and in that final two weeks, I started smoking again because we were so aware that our time together was coming to an end,” he told Vanity Fair in 2012.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share42. When the series came to an end, each cast member took home a piece of central perk.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share43. Central Perk was torn down to become the airport where Rachel takes off from. But as we all know, she got off the plane, which makes the tear-down a waste, no?
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share44. Jennifer Anniston almost said no to the final season. Speaking to Matt Lauer in 2004, Aniston said she had “a couple issues” with another season. “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?’” She eventually agreed to the final season, just as creators lowered the episode count from 24 to 18.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share45. The creators knew early on that Ross and Rachel would end up together. They just liked toying with the audience.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share46. Long before Hollywood started tackling the pay gap between male and female actresses, everyone on 'friends' earned the same per episode. By the end of the show’s run, each Friend was earning $1 million per episode; today’s pay issues have left Lisa Kudrow “fuming."
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share47. Shoot nights could go as late as 1 or 2 am. They would swap out tired audiences for new ones.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share48. Before it was taken off Netflix in 2020, Netflix paid $80 million to keep it streaming throughout 2019.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share49. Courteney Cox was originally supposed to play Rachel. In a 2015 interview, Aniston said that while the Friends team wanted Cox to play Rachel, the real-life BFFs had other plans: “Unbeknownst to each other, I wanted to play Rachel and she wanted to play Monica. It worked out perfectly."
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share50. Matt LeBlanc turned down the role of Phil in Modern Family. After his Friends spin-off, Joey, was canceled, LeBlanc was offered the role of Phil in ABC’s then-new comedy. In an interview with USA TODAY, LeBlanc said: “I remember reading it thinking, this is a really good script, (but) I’m not the guy for this. I’d be doing the project an injustice to take this. I know what I can do, I know what I can’t do."
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share51. The women of Friends share a group chat together.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share52. David Schwimmer directed 10 episodes of Friends.
53 Wild Facts About ‘Friends’ TV Show Every Superfan Should Know
Share53. Rachel gave birth in the show, the same time Courteney Cox had a miscarriage in real life. Cox had a miscarriage and Rachel was giving birth. “It was like that same time. Oh my god, it was terrible having to be funny,” said Cox in an NBC News interview.
