Production went to great lengths to verify the cast didn’t run into each other before cameras started rolling.
“Will there be aFriendsreunion?”
has to be one of the most asked questions of the past dozen or so years.
The cast of ‘Friends’ now: (top) Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer; (bottom): Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, and Lisa Kudrow.HBO Max
“The idea of everybody getting together again was thrilling,” Kauffman says.
“The question was: How do you do that well?”
On a Break
The reunion special was originally set to shoot on March 22, 2020.
David Schwimmer leads his former costars in a quiz about the show.Terence Patrick/HBO Max
“We were like, ‘Yeah.
“They pulled those out of storage,” Crane says of the sets.
“It all had to be reconstructed.
The cast of ‘Friends’ read through classic scenes during the reunion special.Terence Patrick/HBO Max
They pulled props from the Warner Bros. tour,Friendspop-up experiences.
They wanted all the original pieces.”
Production designer John Shaffner and art director Greg Grande both returned to ensure everything wasexactlywhere Monica left it.
And if it wasn’t, well, there’s always the internet.
“Anything that was missing, Greg found on eBay,” Bright says.
“I always wanted them to be apart that morning,” director Ben Winston says.
So imagine his panic when he showed up and their trailers were lined up right next to one another.
“I was so upset.
I really wanted that moment to be real.
Winston then texted the cast, begging them to avoid their fellow Friends.
“I was already talking about [the special] at the time.”
“We were very low-key about what they were doing,” Winston says.
Friends: The Reunionis available tostream on HBO Max now.
