Quarantine means former “Friends” stars Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow can’t get together in person right now. So, when Variety invited the stars to interview each other for its “Actors on Actors” series, they did what so many friends around the world do these days and decided to reminisce via video call.
But they also looked ahead, to the next reunion they have planned — with the rest of their former co-stars.
“I think it’s going to be really fun also when we, if we ever get out of quarantine, get to do our reunion show,” Aniston, 51, said of the highly anticipated HBO Max “Friends” special, which had to be delayed due to the coronavirus.
“Yes, that will be really great,” Kudrow raved. “I can’t wait to do that. I really can’t wait to do that. Yeah, we don’t know everything about it, we need to say. I think we’re meant to be surprised by some things as well.”
The whole reunion show is meant to be something of a surprise, given that it will be completely unscripted. Or as Kudrow summed it up in her chat with Aniston, “I will not be Phoebe.” But the intention was for the full former cast — including, Aniston, Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer — to walk down memory lane and celebrate the beloved series.
The out-of-character special was originally scheduled to shoot in March on the old “Friends” soundstage, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, California. But for now, production on the project remains without a date.
Whatever episodes of the still-popular sitcom they discuss when cameras finally roll on the “Friends” reunion, it’ll have to be from memory — at least for Kudrow.
“I don’t watch the show,” she revealed. “I’m still not watching it in the hopes that one day we sit down and watch them together.”
Aniston assured her that will happen one day, not that she’s avoided the series herself.
“So, since we’ve been in quarantine or staying home, have you watched ‘Friends’?” Kudrow asked.
“I love it. I love stumbling on a ‘Friends’ episode,” Aniston said with a smile. “This one time I was with Courteney, and we were trying to find something to reference, an old ‘Friends’ thing. And then we stumbled on — there’s bloopers online — and we sat there at the computer like two nerds watching these bloopers laughing at ourselves.”
And her favorite part? Watching Kudrow lose it during a take.
“You and I would always get into these fits of laughter because you had this wonderful ability to — you were about to hit your punchline, and you would do this adorable thing where you would break,” she recalled. “You would say the punchline, and you would always turn to the audience and say, ‘I’m sorry, it’s really funny.’”
The "Actors on Actors" chat felt like a sneak peek of what’s to come when the whole cast officially gets together. And even though Kudrow won’t be Phoebe on the special and Aniston won’t be Rachel, fans can rest assured their alter egos will be there in spirit.
“Well, we’re all sort of little fragments of (our characters),” Aniston said. “Not really. But yeah.”