Top 10 Behind the Scenes Stories of Your Favorite Friends Scenes

Everyone knows Mathew Perry played Chandler on the show, but did you know that Perry’s dad is also an actor and a former model? If you’re curious as to what he looks like you could go look him up online or just watch the “Friends” season four episode, “The One With Rachel's New Dress.” In said episode, Rachel and Joshua are on their first date and end up at his parents place while they’re away on vacation. Rachel is sitting on the couch in her lingerie when Joshua’s parents walk in. And who is that actor playing Joshua’s dad? Yup, Mathew Perry’s father, John Bennett Perry.

One of the funniest scenes of the entire series is the scene in season seven with Ross playing the bagpipes and Phoebe singing along. But don’t just take our word for it, look at Jennifer Aniston when Phoebe starts “singing.” Aniston is trying so hard to keep it together but she can’t. And for those who haven’t seen the episode, that isn’t an outtake. That’s the version that made it into the show. Although, when you see some of the actual outtakes, you can see how that one was the best one they had.

David Schwimmer is taller than Aisha Tyler, but just barely. Tyler, who played Charlie on the show, is six feet tall while Schwimmer is 6’1”. So, why does he appear more than an inch taller than Tyler in their scenes together? Well, like Tom Cruise, who’s 5 foot 7 and uses lifts in his shoes, Ross also had small lifts in his shoes during scenes with Charlie. We also noticed that they had Tyler barefoot in scenes where it was possible as well.

The cat might be really smelly, but the song itself has some pretty impressive pedigree. The lyrics for the song, which became a fan favorite, were written by a couple of the show’s writers and originally were about a stinky dog, until they decided a malodorous cat was funnier. The music for the song was written by Kudrow with help from the great Chrissie Hynde, of the Pretenders. And some fans probably remember that Hynde actually guest starred on the season two episode in which “Smelly Cat” made its debut.

After Ross said the name Rachel instead of Emily at his wedding, fans might have noticed that Emily made very few appearances on the show. And when she did she was usually on the phone. There are a number of ways to hide an actress's pregnancy on camera, but the easiest one is to just not film her body. So, when Helen Baxendale, who played Emily, got pregnant, that’s exactly what they did - filmed her from the neck up, or in bed with covers over her baby bump.

If you’re handcuffed to a filing cabinet and you pull your arm forward what do you think will happen? Well, you don’t have to think, just watch Mathew Perry in the season four episode, “The One with the Cuffs.” Unfortunately for Perry his head was right in the path of the moving drawer and no, that wasn’t planned. But being the professional he is, Perry went with it and flashed a classic Chandler face following the bang on his noggin. Given that the drawer-meets-head moment wasn’t scripted, Jennifer Aniston’s reaction of shock was also completely genuine in that instant.

You might remember that Joey’s arm was in a cast for a couple episodes in season three, but what you might not know was that actor Matt LeBlanc actually did dislocate his shoulder. He didn’t actually injure himself jumping on a bed though. He did it by jumping onto the big chair in Monica and Rachel’s apartment while filming “The One Where No One’s Ready”. In the episode, Joey and Chandler are fighting over the chair and one take went a little awry. The cast relived the moment during the 2021 reunion show. And that’s why Joey wore a sling for the next two episodes. Once he was healed they went back and finished filming “The One Where No One’s Ready.”

Going back to genuine Jennifer Aniston reactions, we have to talk about the time she thought David Schwimmer actually fell down the stairs. This moment came at the end of the season seven episode “The One with the Truth About London.” In the episode Rachel teaches Ross’s son Ben a few fun practical jokes, which leads to Ross pulling the ultimate prank on Rachel when he pretends to fall down the stairs. Although it's just a dummy wearing Ross’s clothing, Rachel screams as if she really thought it was Ross. And as it turns out she did. That’s because the director never told her it was going to happen, so Aniston really thought Schwimmer had taken a tumble.

Bruce Willis won an Emmy for his portrayal of Paul “neat guy” Stevens, but this performance would never have happened if not for the success of “The Whole Nine Yards.” You see, Willis and Mathew Perry were in “The Whole Nine Yards” together and while Bruce was a little uncertain as to how the film would do Perry was confident it would do quite well. So much so that he bet Willis that if the movie opened at number one Bruce would guest star on “Friends” for free. The film opened at number one and Willis “Love Machined” his way to a memorable and award-winning performance. He didn’t do it for free, but did donate his salary to charity.

We all remember Monica and Chandler hooking up in London as the beginning of an amazing relationship that brought two soulmates together. However, it was actually supposed to be just a one-night stand. As show co-creator Marta Kauffman has said, “We thought it was going to be funny and we were going to get rid of it.” So what happened? The fans happened. According to Kauffman, the crowd went so crazy during the taping of the hotel room scene that they even had to pause filming. Seeing how much the fans loved the idea of Monica and Chandler, Kauffman said, “We had to rethink how we were going to keep going and change the relationship.” And we are very glad they did.