Friends writer claims cast deliberately ruined jokes to have them rewritten

24 August 2023 , 15:48

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Friends writer claims cast deliberately ruined jokes to have them rewritten to their liking (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

One of the key writers who worked on the sitcom Friends has come clean about her time working on the show, revealing that the cast performed hilarious gags poorly to have them rewritten.

As one of the most successful shows of all time, Friends made stars out of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow during its ten-year run from 1994 to 2004.

Recently, the cast came back together for a reunion special in 2021, which delighted die-hard fans across the globe.

But while everything seemed seamless on screen, Patty Lin, who worked on season seven of the sitcom, has revealed that there was some tension between the cast and the writers behind the scenes. Patty alleged in her new memoir that the cast would deliberately ruin jokes to the point they had to be rewritten.

A writer who worked on Friends said the cast performed hilarious gags poorly to have them rewritten (NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

"The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out, and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them," she explained.

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In her autobiography, End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood, Lin continued: "They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn't like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we'd rewrite it."

She added that the excitement of landing a job on one of the most successful shows in the world "wore off fast" because "dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon."

She said, "dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon" (NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Lin explained that the cast would behave this way because they saw themselves as "guardians of their characters", leading them to argue that their characters would "never do or say such-and-such" if presented with a line they didn't want to perform.

While the cast's deep understanding of their character was "occasionally helpful", Lin admitted that the "aggressive quality lacked all the levity you'd expect from the making of a sitcom".

Lin explained the cast would behave this way because they saw themselves as "guardians of their characters" (NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

That wasn't the only behind-the-scenes dilemma, as Lin revealed that some of the show's established writers were "cliquey" and didn't make an effort to welcome new recruits, likening them to "preppy rich kids in my high school who shopped at Abercrombie & Fitch and drove brand-new convertibles."

Friends is no longer on the U.S. version of Netflix — the show was taken off the platform in January 2020.

But American fanatics can still watch the sitcom with an HBO Max subscription.

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Jabeen Waheed