Random Behind the Scenes Drama from the Set of Friends (16 items)

(#10) Matt LeBlanc was so upset at the end of Friends he started smoking again.
Remember the episode where Joey has to smoke for a role and can’t seem to figure out how to hold a cigarette? In real life, LeBlanc was actually a smoker. The fact that Friends was coming to an end prompted him to pick up the habit after a four-year break. “I had quit smoking for four years, and in that final two weeks I started again because we were so aware that our time together was coming to an end,” he once said.
(#3) The cast hated the Joey/Rachel romance.
The cast really hated the idea of Rachel and Joey getting together. “It felt wildly inappropriate," LeBlanc explained. "I was like, ‘That’s Rachel. She’s supposed to be with Ross.’ Everybody got super defensive about the whole thing. We went to David and Marta as a group and said, ‘We’re really concerned about this. It doesn’t feel right. We have a problem with it.'"
(#16) Filming the final episode was very emotional for the entire cast.
Filming the final episode of Friends was very emotional for everyone involved. “I mean, the last scene we just wept, cried our eyes out... [A]nd then a couple of us stayed really late and we crawled up to the roof of Stage 24 [at Warner Bros.] and we drank champagne and watched the sun rise. It was really wonderful,” Aniston recalls.
(#7) NBC expected loads of hate mail after the lesbian wedding.
There’s no doubt that Friends was an important show for showcasing equality on screen in various forms. However, NBC expected to get a lot of hate mail after the 1996 episode with the lesbian wedding aired. Surprisingly, the network only received four complaints - all via the telephone.
(#14) Courteney Cox struggled with fertility issues in real life.
Just like her character, Courteney Cox struggled with fertility issues during the show’s run and suffered several miscarriages. “I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel was giving birth. It was like that same time," Cox once said. "Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny."
(#11) Jennifer Aniston almost didn’t return for the final season.
By the time the show ended, Aniston was arguably the most famous of the six friends. In a 2004 interview, she admitted she had hesitations about returning to play Rachel for the final season because she wasn’t sure about “how much Rachel” she still had in her. Thankfully, she agreed to stay on. Ultimately, the episode order was cut from 24 to 18 to accommodate her schedule.