Jennifer Anistononce felt like “the failed sitcom queen.”Matt LeBlancauditioned for the role of Joey with a hangover and a bloody nose.
“For more than a decade, the answer has been a consistent and firmno,”writes Miller.
“Someone asks me every day,” writer Marta Kauffman said in a2015 interviewwith EntertainmentWeekly,which is also cited in the book. “I don’t get upset. I understand that people want to relive that. But you can’t relive that. We can’t go back to that time in our lives.”
She added, “Let’s be honest, reunions generally suck.”
David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller on the hit NBC series,agrees with this sentiment.
“Look, the thing is, I just don’t know if I want to see all of us with crutches [and] walkers,” he said during an interview earlier this year.
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Those affiliated with the show have shut down the idea of a reboot, but that hasn’t stopped fans from hoping against hope. A new reader poll in the current issue of PEOPLE selectedFriendsas the reboot that they’d most want to see.
Miller’s book explains why there is such a fascination with the show, which ran for 10 seasons from 1994-2004.
“Friends has managed to transcend age, nationality, cultural barriers, and even its own dated, unrelatable flaws,” Miller writes. “Because underneath all that, it is a show about something truly universal: friendship. It’s a show about the transitional period of early adulthood, when you and your peers are untethered from family, unattached to partners, and equal parts excited and uncertain about the future. The only sure thing you have is each other.”
Keep reading for more highlights from the book.
Director James Burrows took the new cast out to dinner in Las Vegas before the pilot aired so they could enjoy their last night of normalcy. “This is your last shot at anonymity,” he told them, according to the book. Whether or not they believed him, they did want to celebrate and “do whatever it was that hot young television actors were supposed to do when they flew into Vegas on a private jets,” Miller writes. They wrote Burrows checks so they could have some money when they went gambling. “They didn’t have a pot to piss in,” Burrows said, according to the book.
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Schwimmer didn’t want to play Ross
According to the book, Schwimmer originally didn’t want to play Ross, even though the role had been created with him in mind. Fortunately for fans, Schwimmer quickly changed his mind.Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing, also almost didn’t make the casting list because he was originally signed on to another pilot series. Despite the risk, the show took him on. “I instantly knew my whole life was going to change — which has never happened before or since then,” Perry said during an interview with Kevin Pollak, per the book. “I knew I was going to get [the role]. I knew it was going to be huge. I just knew.”
Aniston was almost dropped from the show
The stars presented a unified front during negotiations
Everyone cried at the end
The cast struggled to shoot the very last episode because everyone kept crying. “Everyone had been weepy and struggling all day — all season, really,” writes Miller. The shoot became even more tear-filled when LeBlanc said, “Do you realize this is the last coffee shop scene?” The response was instantaneous, Miller writes. “Everyone just lost it.”
“It was painful,”Courteney Cox, who played Monica,told Oprah in a 2004 interview. “I could cry right now.”
source: people.com
