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'Friends' flashback! Watch cast open up about working together in 1994

Katie Couric sat down with the cast at Central Perk the year it all began.
/ Source: TODAY
By Erin Clements

It's hard to believe "Friends" has been there for us for nearly three decades now.

And as we count down to the cast's reunion on an upcoming HBO Max special Thursday, May 27, we're looking back at TODAY's interview with the beloved sitcom's six stars the year it all began: 1994.

"The show's about six individuals who live in the Big Apple," David Schwimmer told Katie Couric when asked to explain its premise. "Each of them has separate careers and love interests and are in that phase of their lives where they're not relying on their parents anymore for financial stability, and are not yet settled with a husband or wife or kids."

He continued, "And so we're in that gray area where we're relying on our friends for emotional support and spiritual support and trying to make it on our own in the big city."

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Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank

Jennifer Aniston told Couric that it was the group's camaraderie that made "Friends" work.

"We communicate well. We have a great time during rehearsal. The entire combination makes it jell," she said.

While the show was a big hit with 20-somethings at the time, no one was a fan of the term "Generation X."

Cox said the term "implies that we're all aimless and we're just hanging out listening to music and watching 'The Brady Bunch.'"

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©NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection

Kudrow was already known to many viewers for her role as flighty waitress Ursula on "Mad About You," but explained that Phoebe — Ursula's twin sister in a crossover between the two shows — was ditzy "in a different way."

"Phoebe listens really carefully, I think, to what everybody's saying. It's just her response doesn't go through the circuits it would for other people," Kudrow said, adding that Ursula "doesn't even listen at all — she doesn't even bother."

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©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Matt LeBlanc said that the series' success was "pretty amazing" to the young actors.

"I think we're all really taken aback by it, because to us down here, it just seems like we're sort of a theater group," he said. "We all get along really well and it's just a really productive environment."

And finally, Perry revealed what he was working on before "Friends": "I was on every canceled show that George Clooney wasn't on," he quipped.