Ever since Friends concluded its ten season run back in 2004, fans have wondered how life would pan out for Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Joey and Phoebe.
How would new-parents Monica and Chandler find life in Westchester with twins Erica and Jack? Would Rachel and Ross remain happily together and potentially add more kids to their brood or would they find themselves on another break? And what about Joey? Would he finally settle down with a nice girl and win a Daytime Emmy for playing Striker Ramoray on Days of Our Lives?
Sadly, we’ll never know as the long-awaited Friends reunion will not be a continuation of the series, but a discussion of the show’s history and impact with the six main stars and a slew of celebrity guests.
In a newly released trailer for the special, the cast can be seen coming back to the sound stage where they filmed the iconic series and, suffice to say, things get emotional as they reminisce about their time together and what it was like to say goodbye. The team also sit down for some table reads as they revisit classic episodes such as The One Where Everyone Finds Out. Judging by the two-minute sizzle, we’d recommend having tissues at the ready when you watch the reunion — you’ve been warned!
Speaking to People, the actors had some ideas as to what each of their onscreen counterparts might be up to today and it seems that Matt LeBlanc doesn’t have much faith in Joey’s longevity in the entertainment industry.
The actor said that he believed his character would have opened a chain of sandwich shops — and, as Matthew Perry pointed out — eaten all of the sandwiches.
As for Perry himself, he said that he believed Chandler would be “a wonderful father and a wonderful comedy writer,” while his onscreen wife Courtney Cox believes that Monica would be as OCD as ever.
“I always just feel like Monica would be doing something competitively with other mothers and trying to outdo them,” Cox said.
“Whether it’s the bake sale at school or something. I mean, she’d be so annoying. She’d be at the head of the PTA or something.”
Meanwhile, Lisa Kudrow offered some thoughts as to how Phoebe and Mike (played by Paul Rudd, who has not been confirmed for the reunion) might be doing theorising that the pair would be “living in Connecticut with their kids, and she’s in charge of the arts program for the school.”
“And just … the advocate for her kids because they’re different like she was.”
For Jennifer Aniston, whose character Rachel Green evolved from pampered princess to struggling waitress to fashion industry executive, she believes Green would have started her own clothing line. “It’s sort of a small franchise,” Aniston said. “Like a Nili Lotan. And I live in New York City on the Upper East Side.”
As for Ross, David Schwimmer predicted that he would still be “playing with bones” as a paleontologist and “would’ve invested in Joey’s sandwich shop and lost a lot of his savings for his kids.”
Discussing how it was to get back on the Warner Bros. lot after so long, the cast all expressed how impactful the experience was, with Cox saying “I was flooded with 10 years of irreplaceable memories.”
Added LeBlanc, “It’s funny when we do get together, it’s like no time has passed. We pick up right where we left off.”
When asked why the cultural impact of the sitcom has been so powerful and enduring, Perry suggested that it came down to creating characters and themes that were evergreen.
“It was a character-driven funny, not timely funny,” he said.
“They didn’t make timely jokes. They didn’t make jokes about O.J. Simpson. They made character-driven jokes about people — and people are going to come back time and time again and watch that.”
A variety of special guests are scheduled to appear in the Friends reunion special including Reese Witherspoon, who played Rachel’s sister Jill Green on the cult show and Tom Selleck, who played Monica’s much older boyfriend, Richard Burke.
Elliott Gould, who played the Geller’s father, Jack, will also be returning alongside his TV wife, Christina Pickles, who played Judy.
Other celebrities also set to star include David Beckham, Justin Bieber, BTS, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Thomas Lennon, James Michael Tyler, Maggie Wheeler and Malala Yousafzai.
Friends: The Reunion will be available to stream express from the US at 5.02 pm AEST on Thursday, May 27, only on BINGE.
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