Friends Reunion: The One With All The Major Reveals

Friends Reunion: The One With All The Major Reveals
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The Friends reunion is officially out in the world. While it’s not, I repeat, it. is. not. a new episode of Friends, it is a glorious nostalgia-fest and will probably inspire you to watch all ten seasons of the show again.

(Spoilers for Friends: The Reunion ahead)

While certain aspects of the reunion were rather weird – did we really need to hear from David Beckham? – there were some truly great moments as well.

These moments often came from the cast themselves simply reminiscing about their time on Friends. We are here to see them reunite, after all, so while the special episode may have been stuffed with unnecessary celebrity cameos, the stars we did come to see were well worth it.

So, on that note, here’s ‘The One With Everything We Learnt’ From The Friends Reunion.

The cast had a tradition before every episode

Image Credit: Warner Bros Entertainment Inc/ BINGE.

One of the best parts of the Friends reunion was seeing the cast members together again on set. It’s in these moments we learnt a whole lot about what went on behind the scenes.

For example, before every single live taping of the show, the six friends did a group huddle backstage. Although, they did recall the one occasion they didn’t do the huddle…

Matt LeBlanc’s on-set injury

During the famous ‘The One Where No One’s Ready’ episode, Joey and Chandler fight over the rights to sit in the good chair. Matt LeBlanc revealed that during an extra take of this scene he enthusiastically jumped into the chair and popped his shoulder out in the process.

The cast watched the unaired take of this scene together and you really can feel LeBlanc’s pain. The writers ended up including a sling and cast for Joey in subsequent episodes while LeBlanc healed.

The spookiest thing about this event? This was the one episode where the cast didn’t do a huddle before filming. Those stage superstitions do be strong.

Courtney Cox hid her lines around the set

There’s plenty of iconic lines in Friends, but to remember them all one cast member, in particular, had a smart strategy.

Courtney Cox said she’d often hide her lines around the apartment kitchen, usually within the fruit bowl or in the sink. The writers frequently rewrote jokes during live tapings depending on whether the audience found them funny or not.

This meant the actors had to learn new lines incredibly quickly, so Cox had the right idea.

Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer had a real-life flirtation

In what is possibly the biggest revelation from the Friends reunion, it turns out Ross and Rachel’s relationship wasn’t limited to on-screen.

James Corden asked the cast whether any of them were ever romantically involved to which David Schwimmer revealed he had a “major crush on Jen” in the first season. Aniston then confirmed it was mutual.

The actors said nothing ever happened between them because one of them always seemed to be in a relationship and they never wanted to cross that boundary.

Aniston said, “we just channelled all of our adoration and love for each other into Ross and Rachel”.

The cast took memorabilia from the set

It’s a common question for actors in big franchises, did you keep anything from the set?

It seems quite a few genuine Friends set pieces have moved homes since the finale. The original cookie jar now belongs to Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston took a mug from the coffee house and Matt LeBlanc has the original ball from the foosball table.

Not all the actors have seen every episode

friends reunion
Image Credit: Warner Bros Entertainment Inc/ BINGE.

While Friends has been watched billions of times, it seems not all the cast members are included in that number.

Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry admitted to having never seen whole seasons of the show. David Schwimmer said he’d only seen some episodes recently because his daughter was watching the show.

This lapse in knowledge became pretty clear when the cast participated in a recreation of the iconic quiz from ‘The One With The Embyros’. Not one cast member could remember the name of their upstairs neighbour Mr Heckles and to this day nobody knows what Chandler Bing’s job is. But LeBlanc was able to pick out Joey’s hand twin from a lineup so we’ll give him points for that one.

What happened to the Friends?

While we didn’t get any new scripted content in the Friends reunion we did learn where the cast thinks their characters would be now.

Kudrow reckons Phoebe and Mike are still married and live with their kids in Connecticut. Aniston gave hope to Ross and Rachel fans everywhere, saying they would be married with kids and Schwimmer said Ross would still be a paleontologist.

Monica would still be in charge of the bake sale at school even though her kids are grown and have moved out, and Chandler would still make her laugh every day.

As for Joey? LeBlanc said he probably opened a sandwich shop in Venice Beach.

There won’t be another reunion

When asked if a possible reunion movie would be on the cards, Kudrow said it was all up to the producers.

“I once heard them say, and I completely agree, that they ended the show very nicely, everyone’s lives are very nice, and they would have to unravel all of those good things in order for there to be stories. Yeah, I don’t want anyone’s lives to be unravelled.”

The producers said in an interview that once the characters began having families of their own the show stopped being about the Friends so it became a natural endpoint – and it seems the cast agrees.

Courtney Cox also shot down any hope of another cast reunion special saying “this will be the last time that we’re ever asked about the show as a group, that we will do this. We’re not going to do this again in 15 more years.”

Hopefully, you enjoyed the Friends Reunion because this is the only one we’re getting.

If you want to see all these revelations and more, check out Friends: The Reunion over on Binge.


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At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

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