How Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc and Cast of ‘Friends’ Have Done Since the Series Ended

It seems Jennifer Aniston has forgotten about her “Friends.”

Nearly six years after her hit NBC sitcom went off the air, Aniston revealed that she has no idea who her former co-star, David Schwimmer, plans to marry. In an appearance on “The Late Show” earlier this month, the actress drew a blank when host David Lettermanasked who Schwimmer, who played Aniston’s on-again, off-again boyfriend on “Friends,” planned to marry. (The answer: Zoe Buckman, a 24-year-old photographer.)

The series featured six main cast members throughout its run, with numerous characters recurring throughout the ten seasons. The main cast members were familiar to television viewers before their roles on Friends, but were not considered to be stars.^[1] During the series’ ten season run, the actors all achieved household name celebrity status.^[2]

• Jennifer Aniston portrays Rachel Green, a fashion enthusiast and Monica Geller’s best friend from high school. Rachel and Ross Geller are involved in an on again off again relationship throughout the series. Rachel’s first job is as a waitress at the coffee house Central Perk, but she later becomes an assistant buyer at Bloomingdale’s and a buyer at Ralph Lauren in season five. At the end of season eight, Rachel and Ross have a child together, which she names Emma. Aniston had already appeared in several unsuccessful sitcom pilots before being cast in Friends.^[1]

• Courteney Cox Arquette portrays Monica Geller, the mother hen of the group,^[3] known for her obsessive-compulsive and competitive nature.^[4][5] Monica is often jokingly teased for having been an extremely overweight child by the others, especially her brother Ross. Monica is a chef who changes jobs often throughout the show, and marries longtime friend Chandler Bing in season seven. Cox had the highest profile career of the main actors when she was initially cast, having appeared in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Family Ties.^[1]

Friends‘ cast in the first season, from left to right, Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, Courteney Cox Arquette as Monica Geller, Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, David Schwimmer as Ross Geller and Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing.

• Lisa Kudrow portrays Phoebe Buffay, an eccentric masseuse and musician.^[6] Phoebe is known for her self-written guitar songs and for being ditzy yet street-smart. In the last season, she marries a character named Mike Hannigan, played by Paul Rudd.^[7] Kudrow previously played Ursula Buffay on Mad About You, and reprised the dual role of twin sister Ursula as a recurring character during several episodes of Friends.^[1] Before her role on Friends, Kudrow was an office manager and researcher for her father, a headache specialist.^[8]

• Matt LeBlanc portrays Joey Tribbiani, a struggling actor and food lover who becomes famous for his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey is a womanizer with many girlfriends throughout the series, and develops a crush on his friend Rachel in season eight. Before his role on Friends, LeBlanc appeared as a minor character in the sitcom Married… with Children, and as a main character in its spin-offs, Top of the Heap and Vinnie & Bobby.^[9]

• Matthew Perry portrays Chandler Bing, an executive in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration for a large multi-national corporation. Chandler quits his job and becomes a junior copywriter at an advertising agency during season nine. Chandler is known for his sarcastic sense of humor,^[10] and marries longtime friend Monica. Like Aniston, Perry had already appeared in several unsuccessful sitcom pilots before being cast.^[11]

• David Schwimmer portrays Ross Geller, a paleontologist working at a museum of Prehistoric History, and later a professor of paleontology at New York University. Ross is involved in an on-off relationship with Rachel throughout the series. Ross also has three failed marriages during the series, which include Rachel, Emily, and his lesbian ex-wife Carol, who is also the mother of his son, Ben. Before being cast in Friends, Schwimmer played minor characters in The Wonder Years and NYPD Blue.^[1]

Series creator David Crane wanted all six characters to be equally prominent,^[12] and the series was lauded as being “the first true ‘ensemble’ show”.^[13] The cast members made efforts to keep the ensemble format and not allow one member to dominate;^[13] they entered themselves in the same acting categories for awards,^[14] opted for collective instead of individual salary negotiations,^[13] and asked to appear together on magazine cover photos in the first season.^[15] The cast members became best friends off screen,^[8] and one guest star, Tom Selleck, reported sometimes feeling left out.^[16] The cast remained good friends after the series’ run, most notably Cox and Aniston, with Aniston being godmother to Cox and David Arquette’s daughter, Coco.^[17] In the official farewell commemorative book Friends ‘Til The End, each separately acknowledged in their interviews that the cast had become their family.^[18]

In their original contracts for the first season, each cast member was paid $22,500 per episode.^[19] The cast members received different salaries in the second season, beginning from the $20,000 range to $40,000 per episode.^[19][20] Prior to their salary negotiations for the third season, the cast decided to enter collective negotiations, despite Warner Bros. preference for individual deals.^[21] The actors were given the salary of the least paid cast member, meaning Aniston and Schwimmer had their salaries reduced. The stars were paid, per episode, $75,000 in the third season, $85,000 in the fourth, $100,000 in the fifth, and $125,000 in the sixth season.^[22] The cast members received salaries of $750,000 per episode in the seventh and eight seasons, and $1 million per episode in the ninth and tenth.^[11] The cast also received syndication royalties beginning with the fifth season.^[20]

Matthew Perry Photo by: Todd Williamson / WireImage

Chandler at 40: Matthew Perry will star in, co-write and executive produce an as-yet untitled ABC sitcom that he conceived, says the Hollywood Reporter.

The former Chandler Bing of Friends will play a self-absorbed manager of a second-rate sports arena who starts to take stock of his life as he turns 40 – the milestone Perry hit in August.

Other Friends sightings on the tube lately include Courteney Cox starring on ABC’s Cougar Town and Matt LeBlanc signing to headline the Showtime-BBC series Episodes.

– Stephen M. Silverman

It’s been a busy month for the esteemed alumni of Friends. ABC picked up Courteney Cox’s Cougar Town for a full season. Matt LeBlanc finally rebounded from Joey with a Showtime satire about the perils of stardom. According to IMDB, Jennifer Aniston has no less than seven projects in development. David Schwimmer is slated to direct a Clive Owen indie. And Matthew Perry is co-writing and exec producing a comedy series inspired by — himself. Now, Lisa Kudrow can get back to regular work as well. To see which network saved Kudrow from a Smelly Cat American tour, and which Oscar-winning actress will join her, follow us after the jump.

Kudrow will join LeBlanc at Showtime, where she and her Comeback executive producer Dan Bucatinsky are developing a comedy based on Craig Chester’s memoir Why the Long Face?: The Adventures of a Truly Independent Actor, tentatively titled Rapture. The story is about Chester’s “childhood as the gay son in a family of born-again Christian parents and his experiences as a thesp in the indie film world.”

Longtime Kudrow collaborator Don Roos has already agreed to direct if the series is picked up for pilot. The actress will be joined onscreen by Susan Sarandon and Sarah Jessica Parker. Variety reports that a premiere date will be announced soon. And while each alum simultaneously finding work after a major hit sitcom is unprecedented (sorry Cheers and Seinfeld), chances are that at most, two Friends will find success off of these projects. Our money stays on Aniston and Cox.

Written by Julie Miller

 While the world holds out for a Central Perk reunion movie, Matthew Perry continues his quest for post-Friends success on broadcast television. The 17 Again co-star’s latest hope: a single-camera comedy he will act in, co-write and executive produce under the Sony Pictures TV umbrella. But how will it stack up against Monica and Joey’s current television reincarnations?

Inspired by his own milestone birthday last summer, Perry’s show has him starring as a “self-involved manager of a second-rate sports arena who begins to re-evaluate his life on his 40th birthday.” This sounds an awful lot like the short-lived Mike O’Malley Show (A 30-year-old hockey fan re-evaluates his life after attending the wedding of a close friend), which brings up an interesting point. Who has more star power: 1999’s Mike O’Malley or 2009’s Matthew Perry?

Other Friends alums have found relative success in single-camera television recently. Courteney Cox’s Cougar Town was picked up by ABC for an entire season last week and Matt LeBlanc is set to star in Showtime’s television satire Episodes. Lisa Kudrow dabbled in premium cable single-cam back in 2005 with The Comeback, but has since put herself back on the market for Smelly Cat tribute videos. If Perry gets some traction with his semi-autobiographical comedy, he has a chance at becoming the third most culturally relevant Friend after Cox and Jennifer Aniston. David Schwimmer can write the press release.