Fun
Facts / Triva
After reading theses, I've found out that many of
these are not true or outdated. They're still fun
to read anyway.
1. The first line of
dialogue in the very first pilot episode of Friends
was "There's nothing to tell."
2. A 30-second commercial
during the break in the show in America cost
advertisers £500,000.
3. Other titles considered
for the series included "Once upon a time in
the West Village", "Insomnia Café"
and "Across the Hall". The original
title, "Friends like Us", was shortened
to the current one-worder.
4. The six characters
full names are Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston),
Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa
Kudrow), Joey
Tribbiani (Matt le Blanc), Chandler Bing (Matthew
Perry) and Ross Geller
(David Schwimmer).
5. According to Aniston,
her famous "Rachel" hairdo was created by
accident when her "friend" Chris cut her
hair with a razor.
6. Courteney Cox, who
was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, is
known as CC to friends and family.
7. David Schwimmer attended
Beverly Hills High, the school on which the
series Beverly Hills: 90210 was based.
8. Matthew Perry appeared
in Beverly Hills: 90210 earlier in his career.
He said of his role: "Its kind of a blur, but
I remember playing the
most popular kid in school who ends up with a gun
in his mouth because
his Dad is so overbearing".
9. Perry's wit is so
legendary that the scriptwriters have often
incorporated his gags into the show.
10. Cox had the honour
of being the first person to say "period"
on
American TV, making a commercial for Tampax.
11. Aniston attended
the New York High School for the Performing Arts,
the school that Fame was modelled on.
12. Central Perk, the
café in which they all hang out, is based on
the
Manhattan Café in New York's West Village.
13. Cox was a cover girl
for People Magazine's "50 most beautiful people
in the world" issue.
14. She was also dubbed
"TV's hottest babe" by American Playboy
magazine.
15. Director James Burrows,
responsible for many of the early episodes
of Friends, also directed Taxi, Cheers and The Mary
Tyler Moore Show.
16. Matt le Blanc loves
dogs and has a mutt called Lady that he rescued
from a dog pound, and a Doberman called Shadow.
17. Kudrow is married
to a French advertising executive called Michel Stern.
18. Schwimmer is the
son of two Los Angeles lawyers. His mother,
Arlene, handled Roseanne's first divorce.
19. Le Blanc, son of
a mechanic and a circuit-board maker, originally
studied carpentry. "I am not a dumb guy,"
he says. "I just play one on
TV".
20. Famous guest stars
on the show have included ER's George Clooney
and Noah Wyle, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chris Isaak
and Julia Roberts.
21. Perry dated Roberts
after her appearance on the show. His verdict?
"She does leave toothpaste all over the sink
and she's always wanting to
borrow money".
22. The whole cast huddle
together before each episode to wish each
other luck. This made frequent guest star Tom Selleck
feel a bit left
out.
23. Perry's Dad was an
actor who starred in the Old Spice aftershave
ad's, his mother was Press Secretary to Canadian Prime
Minister Pierre
Trudeau.
24. Kudrow has made appearances
on several "worst dressed" lists in
American magazines, but because of her characters
clothes rather than
her own.
25. Perry is very fond
of female vocalists. He says, "If you're a woman
and in any kind of emotional duress and you sing a
song about it, I will
buy your album". Favourites include Shawn Colvin,
the Indigo Girls and
Tori Amos.
26. When the pilot show
was approved by the network, and a series
comissioned, the entire cast was sent on a free trip
to Las Vegas.
27. Cox dated Batman
actor Michael Keaton for five and a half years, and
they are still reportedly "good friends".
28. After graduating
from speech and theatre from Chicago's Northwestern
University, Schwimmer founded a theatre company, Lookinglass,
with 17
classmates.
29. Aniston's Dad was
an actor, John Aniston, who starred in top US soap
Days of our Lives. He divorced her mother when Aniston
was nine.
30. Kudrow gets fed up
with being considered in real life to be as dippy
as her on-screen character, Phoebe. "People talk
slower to me, as if I
were a ten year old", she reveals.
31. Kudrow graduated
from exclusive American college Vassar, where she
gained a major in biology.
32. Cox has been known
to bleach her teeth.
33. Like Ross, le Blanc
has simian friends, he starred with an
animatronic chimp in the baseball movie Ed.
34. Aniston, real name
Anistonopolous, used to be 30lb heavier, until
her agent told her to lose weight. She gave up mayonnaise,
pre-meal
snacking, white bread, post-meal snacking and butter
to reach her
current trim size.
35. Cox, who weighs 7st
3lbs (101lbs) and wears a British size six, is
terrified of being fat. She says, "My ideal weight
would be 100lbs. My
whole family is shaped like pears and I'm afraid of
looking like that".
36. Aniston recently
played a very unglamourous role in Ed Burn's film
Shes the One. She was cast as a wife whose husband
refuses to sleep
with her.
37. Courteney Cox's stepcousin
is Stuart Copeland, of pop group The
Police fame.
38. Schwimmer is very
keen to become a father. "I've always wanted
a
family", he says. "I think that's why we're
here - to have children,
raise them well and try to improve the quality of
life for all the
people who will follow".
39. His most recent girlfriend,
Natalie Imbruglia - who played Beth in
Neighbours - was seen canoodling with record producer
Nigel Godrich.
40. The cast apparently
get on as well in real life as they do on
screen. They play poker and Scrabble together, and
the girls often shop
with each other. The rumour that they had made a pact
never to sleep
together is untrue.
41. Le Blanc and Aniston
were rumoured to have had a fling.
42. The day he auditioned
for Friends, Le Blanc had a big scab on his
nose and forehead after falling down drunk on a bender
the night before.
43. When Schwimmer first
met Le Blanc he was sceptical. Le Blanc was
wearing leather jeans and Schwimmer thought he was
"Joe cool stud" and
hated him on sight.
44. Cox originally read
to play the part of Rachel.
45. Perry has been linked
to actress Tricia Fisher, daughter of Connie
Stevens and Eddie Fisher, who played Hollywood Madam
Heidi Fleiss in a
TV film.
46. LeBlanc is a speed
freak who competed in amateur motor-racing
competitions at the age of eight. In a recent celebrity
Grand Prix he
ran into a wall, taking Jason Priestly's car out of
the race.
47. As a teenager, Cox
was Bruce Springsteen's dancing partner in Brian
de Palma's video of Dancing in the Dark.
48. Counting Crows lead
singer Adam Duritz was linked to both Cox and
Aniston.
49. Like his on-screen
character Joey, Le Blanc has a reputation as a
womaniser. He has been linked to volleyball star Gabrielle
Reece,
English actress Minnie Driver, porn star Jenna Jameson,
Goldie Hawn's 16
year old daughter Kate Hudson and several strippers.
50. Schwimmer complains
of being hounded by women who demand that he
kiss them - even when their boyfriends are there too.
51. In The Pallbearer,
Schwimmers first film since joining Friends, he
starred with Gwyneth Paltrow. The film did badly in
the USA.
52. When she was younger
Aniston wanted to be a sculptor. At the age of
11, she had a painting in an exhibition at the Metropolitan
Museum of
Art in New York.
53. After being picked
to play Roz Doyle in Frasier, Kudrow was
subsequently dropped in favour of actress Peri Gilpin
before the pilot
was even shot.
54. Friends is Channel
4's top-rating comedy, regularly attracting four
million viewers.
55. Kudrow's father is
one of the world's leading experts in headaches.
56. Le Blanc was down
to his last $11 when he got the part in Friends.
57. Schwimmer claims
to have been a "fat, ugly geek" in high
school.
58. Cox played the part
of Michael J Fox's girlfriend Lauren in Family
Ties, between 1986 and 1988.
59. She claims to have
been really in love only once. The lucky man was
called Paul, hailed from Leeds, and "he made
a hell of a Yorkshire
pudding".
60. Now engaged to marry
Sandra Bullock's ex-fiance Tate Donovan,
Aniston counts among her former loves ER's Noah Wyle,
actor Jonathan
Silverman, co-star Matthew Perry and Grant Heslov,
from True Lies.
61. David Schwimmer accused
the handlers of his on-screen pal Marcel the
monkey of being "too possessive". He claims
that he was never allowed
to bond with the creature.
62. Marcel's trainer,
Nerissa Pulizer, said of her charge: "If Marcel
were human, she'd be Meryl Streep".
63. The monkey was the
first cast member to get a Hollywood movie role,
appearing in the movie Outbreak.
64. The daughter of Cary
Grant and Dyan Cannon, Jennifer Grant, played
Nina Bookbinder, an employee of Chandler's who ended
up dating him in the first series.
65. The Friends album
includes songs from REM, Joni Mitchell and Hootie
and the Blowfish, a band four of them once went to
see.
66. The theme tune, I'll
be there for you by the Rembrants, has been a
huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
67. Friends executive
producers Marta Kuaffman and David Crane also
created the adult sitcom Dream On.
68. The characters of
Ross's ex-wife and her girlfriend Susan are based
on the godmothers to Kauffman's daughter.
69. The opening footage
of the cast dancing around a fountain was filmed
on the Warner Brothers lot in LA at five o'clock one
morning.
70. The first thing Cox
bought with her Friends money was a brand new
Porsche.
71. The occupations of
the characters are as follows: Ross,
palaeontologist; Monica, chef; Joey, actor/model;
Phoebe, masseuse;
Rachel, waitress; Chandler, data processor.
72. Cox was the best-known
member of the cast before the show. She
played opposite Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
and was in
Cocoon: The Return.
73. Le Blanc is currently
filming Lost in Space with Gary Oldman at
Shepperton Studios. He's renting a flat in London's
Kensington and has
been seen shopping in Budgens.
74. Two models for American
underwear company Victoria's Secret appeared
in the first series. One was the dream girl Chandler
gets stuck with
during a blackout, the other was a girl who is convinced
that Joey has
VD.
75. Perry looked at 40
houses before buying his current W-shaped ranch
house with pool in LA.
76. Aniston bought her
brother Bronco car for Christmas, and he cried.
77. Schwimmer was in
the first series of NYPD Blue. He was a nerd who
lived in the apartment next door to Sherry Stringfield
and ended up
shooting a mugger.
78. Kudrow co-stars with
Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino in a new film, Romy
and Michele's High School Reunion.
79. Christina Pickles,
who plays Monica's mum, also worked with Cox ten
years ago on the film Masters of the Universe.
80. Cox has said of her
character: "She's obsessive, the one who has
to
be perfect and please everybody. I'm so similar to
her it's
frightening".
81. When Jay Leno asked
Aniston to touch her nose with her tongue on the
Tonight show, she politely declined.
82. Kudrow started her
showbiz career at Groundlings, a local
improvisational comedy school in LA.
83. Schwimmer has a multi-million-dollar
deal with top Hollywood studio
Miramax to star in and direct several films.
84. Aniston starred in
an unsuccessful horror movie called Leprechaun in
1993.
85. Her next feature
is a romantic comedy, Picture Perfect.
86. Kudrow used to date
American talk show host Conan O'Brian.
87. Le Blanc admits to
having spat in someone's food when he worked in a
New York burger joint.
88. Aniston's shampoo
commerical for L'Oreal is only being shown in
Europe. She says she will never do a hair-product
ad in America.
89. Her godfather was
former Kojak actor Telly Savalas.
90. Perry has recently
lost two and a half stone, while allegedly
depressed and on painkillers. Despite celebrity girlfriends
such as
Julia Roberts, he attributes his state of mind to
his failure with
women.
91. Raised in Ottawa,
Canada, Perry was a junior tennis ace before
taking up acting. He never graduated from college.
He gave up his
studies when he won a role in a sitcom called Boys
will be Boys. His
first movie role since joining Friends was Fools Rush
In, playing a
nightclub promoter.
92. Childhood Friends
of southern belle Cox were reportedly shocked at
the lesbian storyline in the show.
93. Perry's grandfather,
however, loves the show. And so do all his
friends.
94. In a somewhat unlikely
claim, Perry also insists that Mrs Thatcher
is an avid viewer, particularly of Joey and Chandler's
scenes.
95. Neurotic about her
looks, Cox worries about the thin, dry skin under
her eyes, having different sized nostrils and a double
chin. As if…..
96. There's a book out
called Cooking with Friends, full of comfort-food
recipes for when "it hasn't been your day, your
month or even your year"
- a reference to the theme song.
97. Matt le Blanc used
to model Levi 501's and has appeared in TV ads
for Coca-Cola and Heinz Ketchup.
98. Le Blanc admits to
being a mummys boy, and is devoted to his Italian
mother, Pat Grossman. He didn't meet his father until
he was eight.
99. Cox plays a TV reporter
chasing down a serial killer in horror flick
Scream.
100. The show's producers
admit that the characters could never afford
the rents on the apartments they live in on the show.
101. Highlights of the
third series include guest appearances by Robin
Williams and Billy Crystal, and a scene in which Joey
strips naked.
102. Over 5 miles of
film are used for every episode. They hold around
12 hours of footage which has to be cut down to 22
minutes.
103. If all goes well
it takes 5 hours to film an episode.
104. Matthew Perry admits
to still getting nervous before episodes.
105. Friends uses 4 cameras
for each scene.
106. Canned laughter
is used where the audiences laughter lasts too
long or isn't what editor, Steve Prime, is looking
for.
107. From series 6 onwards,
the title music I'll Be There For You is cut
from 45 to 35 seconds.
108. There are 500 tickets
available per show, but there are only 300
seats in the studio.
109. Friends is shot
in Studio 9 at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank,
California.
110. The studio is 4
stories high and the top is known by gaffers as
the "ozone".
111. The cast and crew
are big fans of the Nintendo 64 and play
Mario Kart 64 on their breaks.
112. 12 writers work
on making Friends funny.
113. Friends averages
over 26 million viewers every week in the US alone.
114. Props Master, Marjorie
Coster-Praytor, had to make 6 version of
Phoebe's shoe-house in case they didn't get the shot
of it burning down
first time.
115. Matthew Perry is
the only cast memeber aloud to the screen writings.
He often helps the writers with jokes for the show.
