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A
few Frequently Asked Questions about the show
Friends is a weekly half hour show about six twentysomethings, 3 guys and 3 girls. They all live in New York City, and spend most of their time hanging out in a coffee house called Central Perk (Hence the name of my site!), or in the apartment owned by Monica Geller. The show basically centres on the six's quest to find meaningful jobs, relationships, and stay friends. Friends is made by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions in association with NBC. And although the show is set in NYC, it is actually filmed in Los Angeles. The show has been going for 4 seasons now, and the cast are signed on to do at least another season.
Friends centres on six people. Click on the character name to see information about the character, click on the actor's or actress's name to see information about the person who plays the character (easy really!):
Chandler Bing played by Matthew Perry
Phoebe
Buffay played by Lisa Kudrow
Monica
Geller played by Courteney Cox
Ross
Geller played by David Schwimmer
Rachel
Green played by Jennifer Aniston
Joey
Tribbiani played by Matt Le Blanc
Chandler is the funniest of a very funny group. He is a very sarcastic guy, whose one-liners often take down his friends.
Chandler lives with his roommate Joey Tribbiani across the hall from Monica Geller and Rachel Green. Chandler's exact age is not known, but a rough guess is 29. He is the only child of a flamboyant romance novelist mother (Nora Tyler Bing, played by Morgan Fairchild), and a genderbending father. They divorced when he was 9 years old, and they told him they were getting divorced over Thanksgiving dinner (and now he boycotts all pilgrim holidays). He went to college with Ross Geller (Monica's older brother), and they were roommates. He works at a international data corporation, but nobody seems to know what his job is, just that it's "something with numbers". But he hates his job. His favourite TV programme seems to be 'Baywatch', and he loves Yasmine Bleeth, so much that he named his and Joey's little chick 'Yasmine' after her.
Everyone mimics the strange way he talks, by putting emphasis on different words. For instance:
"Could that report BE any later?"
But underneath Chandler's sarcastic exterior (and we are talking very sarcastic) is a very sweet, sensitive guy who would do anything for his friends (including pee on them - "Eww!". See the first Season 4 episode, TOW The Jellyfish if you don't know what I'm talking about!)
"Matty's one of the most sensitive people I've ever met, more than most girls I know."
JENNIFER ANISTON
Many fans of actors believe that their idols make up their lines as they go along. In most cases this is not true, but Matthew Perry is an exception to that rule. Matthew Perry is the actor who, out of the six actors and actresses on Friends, is most like his character (and apparently he said that himself!). In real life he is just as sarcastic as the lovable Chandler.
Matthew Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, on August 19, 1969 (Which makes him 28), the only child of Suzanne Perry (the press secretary for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau), and John Bennett Perry (an actor, best known as the sailor in the Old Spice adverts on TV). Matthew moved to Canada with his mother after his parents divorced before he was a year old. He lived in many Canadian cities, but most notably Ottawa. He played tennis as a kid, and was ranked 17th in the country for his age group, and his doubles team was third. Both his parents remarried, and had children. His mother remarried Keith Morrison when Matthew was 10, and had four more children: Caitlin, Emily, Willy, and Madeline.When Matthew was 15 he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father John, John's second wife Debbie, and their daughter Marie. He was prepared for his first big tennis match, but unfortunately it didn't go so well, so he decided to pursue his acting career instead.
He was "discovered" by a director when the young Matthew was skipping school. Matthew was in a San Fernando Valley restaurant trying to impress some girls, and got a note on a napkin from the director. He auditioned for the role, and won a small part in the 1988 River Phoenix movie 'A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon'.
In 1993 Matthew and his friend Andrew Hill Newman decided to write their own sitcom, about a group of twentysomethings, called 'Maxwell's House'. NBC said they were interested, but they already had a similar thing in the works, a sitcom called 'Friends'. In 1994 Matthew auditioned for the show and got the part of Chandler Bing. And the rest, as they say, is history...
Phoebe is the airhead of the group, a New Agey Friend, a Vegetarian masseuse who often sees things from a very strange perspective. Phoebe likes cleansing people's auras, and writing songs (even if they are strange!!)
Phoebe came to New York after her mother comitted suicide, and stayed with an albino guy. When he died, she discovered aromatherapy, and she now works at Healing Hands, a massage clinic. Phoebe is funny, meaning that she will come up with the weirdest of things at the most inappropriate of times. She makes up songs, mostly about her mother's suicide, and sings them at Central Perk. Phoebe used to live in an apartment with Monica, but Monica was getting too "twirly", so Phoebe moved out to live with her grandmother. Phoebe has an identical twin called Ursula, but they don't get on with each other, so they don't talk much (apparently Ursula threw Phoebe's Judy Jetson thermos under a bus and broke it.)
"Oh my god, can that woman act! Who knew Phoebe had depth? We didn't."
MARTA KAUFFMAN
Lisa Kudrow is the complete opposite of her Friends character, in real life she is more of an egghead that an airhead. She was a bookworm in junior school, and was a Straight A student through High School. She majored in biology and was set to follow in the footsteps of her father (Dr. Lee Kudrow, a world famous headache expert). She wasn't interested in acting at all, until one day when her brother brought home an actor friend of his, Jon Lovitz (who has appeared as a stoned restaurant owner in 'The One With The Stoned Guy'). Jon persuaded her to take acting lessons, and she did. She auditioned for the role of Roz in Frasier, and got the part, before Peri Gilpin was chosen above Lisa to play Roz. But Lisa auditioned for the role of Phoebe in Friends, and got the part, and now plays New York's most lovable airhead
Monica is the 'mother hen' of the group, and her apartment (which she shares with Rachel) is often the place where the Friends hang out if they're not in Central Perk. She is also an obsessive neat-freak, and would freak out if someone didn't use a coaster when they put down their drink!
Monica is the younger sister of Ross. She is also very good at foosball (table football), and could beat Chandler and Joey with one hand tied behind her back. Although being thin now, as a child she was chubby, liked to read in her room, and liked to do puzzles. Her best friend in High School was Rachel Green, but they grew apart, until Rachel came bursting into Central Perk one day in her wedding dress. Monica had a spare room after Phoebe left, so Rachel moved in with Monica. Monica's father used to call her "Our little Harmonica."
But even though she can be obsessive sometimes, she is great fun to be around, and is loved by the other five. She wants to have a baby (that is the reason she broke up with her old (indeed) boyfriend Richard Burke (played by Tom Selleck), because he was 21 years older than her, and was a father (and grandfather) himself.), so much that Chandler once offered to marry her ("If we're 40, and neither of us are married, what d'you say you and I get together?"), but she took this as an insult ("Why won't I be married whan I'm 40?") [to see the whole quote, go to the 'Quotes' page].
"I thought she'd be a little aloof and celebrity-ish. But she wasn't at all."
LISA KUDROW
Courteney Cox was born on 15th June 1964, in Birmingham, Alabama. She went to speech lessons to lose her southern accent, yet Matthew Perry still calls her "hick" first thing in the morning. She claims this is because she says "Y'all" in the morning instead of "What's going down?". She wanted to be an architect, and she still renovates old houses. With help from her family she moved to New York and got a contract with the Ford modelling agency. She appeared on the covers of various teen magazines and romance novels aimed at young women.
The youngest of four children, Courteney (or CeCe to friends) has appeared in many movies before Friends (probably the most well known will be Ace Ventura: Pet Detective), and has also appeared in Scream and Scream 2. She played Michael J. Fox's girlfriend Lauren on the TV series Family Ties. If you think you've seen her in something else you probably have - she was the girl that Bruce Springsteen pulled out of the audience in his video of 'Dancing In The Dark'. Although she was only on screen for 26 seconds, that small appearance opened up a few doors in the business for her. When she auditioned for Friends the producers wanted her to play the part of Rachel, but she insisted on the part of Monica.
Ross is the sensitive Friend, the friend who has a small son (called Ben). He was married to a woman called Carol, but she left him for another woman (Susan).
Ross is the older brother of Monica. He used to go out with Rachel Green, but they split up after he slept with another woman after he thought that him and Rachel were broken up (In his own words: "WE WERE ON A BREAK!!"). He had a crush on Rachel in High School, though Rachel just saw him as the geeky brother of her best friend. Ross and Chandler were (apparently) roommates in college, so they know each other from there.
Ross is a palaentologist at the New York Museum of Natural History. His worst fear is being buried alive (He said this in the first season episode The One Where Nana Dies Twice, after he falls into an empty grave.) When he went to China for a "whole big bone thing", he gave Rachel a Crystal Duck as a birthday present (and Chandler acidentally let slip that Ross loved Rachel). Rachel went to the airport to see him after he came back, but Ross got off the plane with another woman (Julie). Rachel finally told him how she felt, and Ross dumped Julie for Rachel.
"David has the craziest fans. When he goes out, you'd think The Beatles had arrived."
COURTENEY COX
David Schwimmer is the son of two Los Angeles lawyers (his mother hadled Roseanne's divorce case.) He was born in Queens, New York, but grew up in Los Angeles. He went to Beverly Hills High, which is the school Beverly Hills, 90210 is based on.
For a time, David considered studying law or medicine, but after doing a summer course in theatre at Chicago's Northwestern University, he decided to do acting. After graduating, he used his savings to co-found The Lookingglass Theater Company in Chicago with a group of fellow graduates. He went to LA and landed recurring roles on LA Law, The Wonder Years, and NYPD Blue.
The role of Ross was written specially for him by the shows producers Marta Kauffman and David Crane. He was the only member of the cast which was offered the part without an audition, but he thought that the show wouldn't last for long. Apparently he was sleeping on a futon in a friend's living room in Chicago only two months before he filmed the pilot episode.
Rachel is the Spoilt Friend, the one who always had money because she lived off her dad's credit card.
She is a waitress at Central Perk, the coffeehouse where the Friends hang out. Rachel was supposed to get married to an orthodontist called Barry, but she was freaked out by how much he looked like Mr Potato Head, and left him at the altar. Her parents were outraged, and so Rachel decided to go independent, and get a job. But Rachel had no experience of this, because she had lived off of her father's credit cards all her life, and didn't have to make a cup of coffee until she was 25. She managed to track down her old high school friend Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), and they are now roommates.
"Jennifer is without a doubt the worst driver in the world. Just knowing that she is out for the evening is enough to make me stay at home."
MATTHEW PERRY
Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, in 1969, but her family moved to Greece for a year (her family is originally from Greece, and her father is John Aniston, from US soap Days Of Our Lives (the one Joey was in)). Her family then moved back to New York City. Her godfather was the actor Telly Savalas.
From a very early age she wanted to act. She attended Manhattan's High School of the Performing Arts, which is the school that Fame is based on. She moved to LA because she thought that there were more acting opportunities there. She got her first acting job as a series regular on Molloy in 1989. She was struggling to get acting jobs, and her agent told her that she wasn't being taken seriously because she was overweight. After shedding 30 pounds, she auditioned for Friends. She was asked to read for the part of Monica, but she demanded to read for the part of Rachel. When she read the part, the producers knew immediately that they had found the right woman for the job.
I'll give it to you straight - Joey is a little on the dumb side. But in the nicest and sweetest possible way. He is a struggling actor whose biggest part was on the soap-opera Days Of Our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. But after saying that he wrote most of his own lines (which was bending the truth), he was killed off by falling down an elevator shaft. He did, however, get the job of playing his idol (Al Pacino's) butt. But he was sent off because he was very method orietated. Joey lives in the apartment opposite Monica and Rachel, along with his roommate Chandler. Joey has seven sisters, and he's the only boy. Joey is "pretty dumb", but in a nice way.
"Matt's an unbelievably nice guy in the body of a tough, get-out-of-my-way guy."
MATTHEW PERRY
Apart from Courteney Cox, Matt Le Blanc was the person who most intimidated the rest of the cast in the beginning. All they knew about him was that he had made a Levi Jeans commercial, and they thought he was going to be "Joe Cool Stud". But he finds all of that funny now (and they're not as intimidated by him now).
Matt was born on July 25, 1967 in Newton, Massachusetts. He went to a technical vocational high school as a teenager, and majored in carpentry. But all he liked to do was partying and messing around with motorcycles. When he was 18 he moved in with his father in Florida. then he moved to New York, and convinced two flight attendants to let him share their apartment by saying he had a trust fund when all he had was $3,000 after selling his truck. He stumbled into modelling, but he didn't like it. He made ends meet by working at a burger bar called Fatburger. Matt got into acting by doing commercials, for brands such as Levi's, Coke, Heinz ketchup, and Doritos, amongst others. After landing a starring role in TV 101, he moved to LA. He still enjoys racing cars and motorcycles, and races in celebrity grand prix's (in one celebrity grand prix he smashed into a wall whilst trying to take out Jason Priestley.)
A FEW FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
ABOUT FRIENDS
1. "So, like, what is the show about?"
Friends's executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane described the series as "about love, sex, careers, and a time of life when anything is possible. It's about searching for commitment and security - and a fear of commitment and security. And, most of all, it's a show about friendship - because when a person is young and single in the city, friends and family are synonymous."
2. "Okay... Who are the Friends?"
NBC's Friends press release from September 1994 (The month the show premiered), introduced the lovable sextet like this:
At the centre of this group is Monica, a bright woman with a knack for meeting the wrong men. An assistant chef at an uptown restaurant, she has had to work for everything - unlike Rachel, her pampered best friend from high school.
As Monica's new roommate, Rachel is embarking on a life of independence after having left her fiancee at the altar.
Monica's older brother, Ross, was thrust into batchelorhood when his wife announced she was a lesbian and left him, A hopeless romantic, he misses married life and fears there might have only been one woman in the world for him.
Across the hall from Monica are Chandler and Joey.
Chandler, a wry observer of everyone's life, is romantically detatched and professionally unmotivated.
Joey, a struggling actor, is more passionate about life. He loves women, sports, New York, and most of all himself.
Rounding out the circle of friends is Monica's former college roommate, Phoebe, an off-beat, eternally optimistic waif.
3. How did the Friends meet?
When asked this question on the Friends internet newsgroup, supervising producer Jeff Greenstein gave what he described as the "quasi-definitive" answer ("as we writer folk have discussed it over the course of the season," he explained):
In the pilot, we established that Monica, Rachel, and Ross all went to Lincoln High School together.
Rachel and Monica were close, but they drifted [apart] enough so that Rachel didn't invite Monica to her wedding. We also established that Ross had a crush on Rachel back then.
[At one point], Schwimmer and Perry wondered if Chandler and Ross might have gone to college together. We writers agreed that it might be nice for two of our other characters to have a history together, so we wrote it in.
Therefore, my guess is that when Monica graduated college and was looking for an apartment, Chandler alerted her to the fact that an apartment was opening up across the hall from him (but in a Season 3 episode (TOW the Flashback), Monica says to Joey that the apartment was originally her grandmother's, who moved to Florida and gave the apartment to Monica). Monica found Phoebe through a roommate-matching service and moved in.
When Chandler's roommate Kip got married, he moved out and Joey (who Chandler probably also met through a roommate-matching service, or by putting up flyers at the laundromat) moved in.
Around the same time, Phoebe's grandmother needed some kind of taking care of, so Phoebe moved out of Monica's to live with her.
(For more information, watch the third season episode TOW The Flashback)
4. See, there, you keep on referring to to episodes as 'TOW', but what does it mean?
That's easy. Friends episodes are special because they don't just have any old name, but the episode title refers to something related to the content of the episode, or something that happens in the episode. You see, 'TOW' stands for 'The One With' or 'The One Where'. 'TOA' stands for 'The One At' or 'The One After'. For example, in one episode, Joey and Chandler have to look after Ross's baby son Ben, but they take him on the bus and leave him because they're following these two women. That episode is called 'The One With the Baby On The Bus', but it's quicker to write TOW instead of The One With. If you see the name of an episode you can normally guess what's gonna be in it :)
5. So then, what did the show's cast and creative team do before Friends?
Friends executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane were the executive producers of HBO's smash hit Dream On.
Jennifer Aniston's film credits include Leprechaun and The Edge. Her TV credits include appearances in the series Ferris Bueller, The Edge, and Muddling Through.
Courteney Cox's film credits include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Sketch Artist II: Hands That See, Blue Desert, Mr Destiny, Roxanne: The Prize Pulitzer, Cocoon: The Return, I'll Be Home For Christmas, Masters of the Universe, and Misfits of Science. Her TV credits include appearances on the series Family Ties and Misfits of Science.
Lisa Kudrow's film credits include The Unborn, and In The Heat Of Passion. Her TV credits include appearances on the series Newhart, Coach, and Mad About You, in which she has a recurring role as Phoebe's twin sister Ursula.
Matt Le Blanc's film credits include Lookin' Italian, and Anything To Survive. His TV credits include appearances on Married With Children, Red Show Diaries, Top Of The Heap, and TV 101.
Matthew Perry's film credits include A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon (with River Phoenix) Deadly Relations, She's Out Of Control, Call Me Anna, and Dance 'Til Dawn. His TV credits include appearances on Home Free, Beverly Hills 90210, Sydney, Charles In Charge, and Growing Pains.
David Schwimmer's film credits include Twenty Bucks, Crossing The Bridge, Flight Of The Intruder, and The Pallbearer. His TV credits include appearances on The Wonder Years, NYPD Blue, and Monty.
6. Okay then, you got me. What exactly IS a 'nubbin'?
Why, that's an easy one. It's Chandler's name for his third nipple. (But he had a little 'nubbinectomy', and is now "without nubbin".)
(Could that question BE any easier?!)
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