Friends icon Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel Green in the hit series, has revealed how the cast battled to save cast members from being axed when series negotiations took place.
The 52-year-old star gave an insight into the way the actors stuck together to make sure they all remained on the show.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter about her time on the legendary comedy, she said: “We really did have so much fun together. I remember that was one of the things when we were young and dumb and renegotiating, one of the [studio’s] threats was, 'Well, we don’t need all six of you. We can do this with four of you.'
"We were like, 'What? You can? You can get rid of Rachel or Joey or who?' Then it was like, 'No they can’t, wake up.'”
Jennifer also spoke about how the recent Friends reunion was harder than she had anticipated, explaining: “I think we were just so naive walking into it, thinking, 'How fun is this going to be? They’re putting the sets back together, exactly as they were.' Then you get there and it’s like, 'Oh right, I hadn’t thought about what was going on the last time I was actually here.'
"And it just took me by surprise because it was like, 'Hi, past, remember me? Remember how that sucked? You thought everything was in front of you and life was going to be just gorgeous and then you went through maybe the hardest time in your life?
"It was all very jarring and, of course, you’ve got cameras everywhere and I’m already a little emotionally accessible, I guess you could say, so I had to walk out at certain points. I don’t know how they cut around it.”
She also revealed what convinced the cast to finally film the Friends reunion, after they had resisted doing it for so long.
“Enter [director] Ben Winston. We were all like, 'I don’t know if we were just seduced by his talent or his charm or a combination of all of it.” Even the boys were like, 'Damn, I’m kind of in love with the guy.'"
The legendary US sitcom was first broadcast in 1994 and ran for 10 seasons until it finished in 2004.
Friends: The Reunion is available to stream on NOW in the UK and HBO Max in the US. Friends is available to stream on Netflix in the UK and HBO Max in the US.
