The special is at its best in these genuine, intimate moments, like when Perry reveals the pressure he felt performing in front of a live studio audience. Added Aniston, who remains a tabloid obsession, "It kind of imprinted in our neural pathways. "No one was going through what we were going through, except the other five," Schwimmer says as the six talk on set in the meticulously re-created living room of Monica Geller and Rachel Green's apartment. Tabloids followed their personal lives with rabid fascination, with helicopters even hovering over their houses, trying to grab footage. The six graced countless magazine covers, including Rolling Stone, and got mobbed by screaming fans wherever they went. It's clear the actors thought of each other that way, brought even closer by their shared experience as young actors navigating newfound mega-fame. The show is "about that time in your life when your friends are your family," says David Crane, one of the executive producers of both Friends and the reunion special. There are laughs, too, as the actors reminisce and effortlessly slip back into character sitting around a table reading classic old scripts (Kudrow's return to Phoebe Buffay's voice and gestures is a particular delight).
"I got chills," LeBlanc says, standing in the old apartment he and Perry's character shared.
#Hbo max friends reunion series
When the series finale aired in May 2004, more than 52 million viewers tuned in, and Netflix brought it to a whole new audience.įor the unscripted reunion, the actors arrive one by one on Stage 24, so we have time to take in each one's emotional reaction to being back on the iconic set, rebuilt exactly the way it used to be. One of the highest-rated television shows of all times, Friends ran for 10 seasons, averaged 25 million viewers a week and rocketed all six actors to international stardom. It's the first time LeBlanc, Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer have been together in the same room since the finale aired in 2004. The highly anticipated reunion, streaming now on HBO Max, reunites the six lead actors on the show's original soundstage at the Warner Bros. It's a simple moment, tinged with a poignancy that permeates the whole special. Now they're two middle-aged guys with gray hair and more lived experience, together again and looking back. There's a genuine warmth to the exchange between the two actors, and as an old episode flashes back to them in their 20s, leaning back in barcaloungers in the same spot, it's hard not to feel melancholy. "Aww, Matty, it's good to see you, man," Perry tells the affable LeBlanc, now a 53-year-old teddy bear of a guy who delivers lingering hugs to his former cast mates. And in the case of the 51-year-old Perry, who's battled addiction and, more recently, spent three months in the hospital following gastrointestinal surgery, life hasn't always been funny. Yet the actors have lived lifetimes since Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani shared a New York bachelor pad on the long-running NBC comedy. When Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc plop down in side-by-side leather lounge chairs during Friends: The Reunion, it is, for a moment, as if no time has passed since their characters reclined in front of their cherished television all those years ago.
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