Main characters[edit]
All six main actors had prior experience in situation comedy, and, in some cases, improvisational comedy as well. All six actors appear in every episode.
Rachel Green[edit]
Rachel Karen Green (Jennifer Aniston) is the spoiled but warm-hearted and likable daughter of a rich vascular surgeon and his wife. Rachel is introduced into the series in the first episode after she leaves her fiancé, Barry, at the altar, and attempts to live independently without financial support from her parents.[e 1] She flees from her almost-wedding to New York City to find Monica Geller, her friend from high school. Rachel moves into Monica's apartment and meets Phoebe Buffay and Joey Tribbiani. Rachel already knows Ross Geller, Monica's brother, as all three went to the same high school. In the first episode, she is also introduced to Chandler Bing, Ross's college buddy; however, later episodes retcon this, and she is shown to have met Chandler on previous occasions whilst Ross was at college. Rachel's first job is as a waitress at Central Perk coffee house. She later begins to work in fashion, becoming an assistant buyer, and later a personal shopper, at Bloomingdale's. She eventually becomes a buyer at Polo Ralph Lauren.
A great deal of Rachel's life throughout the series revolves around her relationship with Ross Geller. At the end of season seven, during Monica's and Chandler's wedding, it is revealed that Rachel is pregnant from a one-night stand with Ross. Initially, Rachel is determined to raise the baby on her own, but later she realizes she needs Ross's help. She decides to move in with Ross, even though the two are not involved in a relationship. Their daughter, Emma, is born during the eighth-season finale.
During the tenth season, Rachel is offered a job with Louis Vuitton in Paris. She accepts and prepares to move herself and Emma to France. However, in the series finale, she declines the job offer and famously "gets off the plane". Rachel and Ross get back together in the final moments of the series.[e 2]
Monica Geller[edit]
Monica E. Geller-Bing (Courteney Cox) is the younger sister of Ross and best friend of Rachel, the latter of whom she allows to live with her after Rachel forsakes her own wedding. She works primarily as a chef at a variety of restaurants. She is described as the mother hen of the group,[18] and is known for her obsessive-compulsive and competitive nature.[19][20] Monica is often jokingly teased by the others, especially Ross, for having been extremely overweight as a child.
In the second season, Monica falls for her father Jack's (Elliott Gould) friend, Richard Burke (Tom Selleck). Despite the twenty-one year age difference, Monica and Richard are happy, and her parents accept their relationship. However, as a result of Monica yearning for a family but Richard having already had one, they break up at the end of the second season. Monica then pursues a chain of various men until she unexpectedly begins a relationship with her longtime friend, Chandler Bing, at the end of the fourth season, during her brother Ross' wedding to Emily Waltham. Monica and Chandler try to hide their relationship from the rest of the group for much of the fifth season, but eventually everyone finds out. After celebrating their first anniversary in Las Vegas, they move in together and get engaged by the sixth-season finale. After their marriage, Monica and Chandler try to conceive children, only to discover that they are unable to do so. In the final season of the series, they adopt new-born twins, whom they name Erica and Jack.
Phoebe Buffay[edit]
Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan (Lisa Kudrow) is an odd, ditzy albeit sweet-natured masseuse who grew up homeless, sometimes telling her friends outlandish tales of life on the street. She is an aspiring musician who plays the guitar and sings songs with somewhat unusual lyrics at the coffee shop. She has an identical twin sister, Ursula (also played by Kudrow), who is just as odd as Phoebe and appeared as a recurring character on Mad About You. After a series of dates and relationships with a number of men, Phoebe meets Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd) in season nine, whom she eventually marries in season ten. She also became a surrogate mother for her half-brother Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi), giving birth to his triplets in the fifth season.
Joey Tribbiani[edit]
Joseph Francis "Joey" Tribbiani Jr. (Matt LeBlanc) is a good-natured but not-so-bright struggling actor and food lover, who becomes mildly famous for his role as Dr. Drake Ramoray on a fictionalized version of Days of Our Lives. Joey is a womanizer, with many girlfriends throughout the series, often using his catchphrase pick-up line "How you doin'?" He develops a crush on Rachel in season eight.
Prior to his role on Friends, LeBlanc appeared as a regular on the short-lived TV 101, 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.[21] After Friends ended, LeBlanc portrayed Joey in a short-lived spin-off, Joey.
Chandler Bing[edit]
Chandler Muriel Bing (Matthew Perry) is an executive in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration for a large multi-national corporation. He later quits his job and becomes a junior copywriter at an advertising agency.
Chandler is known for his sarcastic sense of humor.[22] He often mocks his best friend Joey for the latter's stupidity. Chandler is often depicted as being somewhat of a hapless individual, suffering a lot of bad luck while struggling through life and occasionally struggling with an on-and-off smoking addiction. However, he eventually falls in deep mutual love with Monica and proposes to her at the close of season six, with the two of them marrying at the close of season seven. By the end of series, he and Monica adopt twins, whom they name Jack and Erica.[17]
Like Aniston, Perry had already appeared in several unsuccessful sitcom pilots before being cast. He had also starred in the TV series Second Chance and Sidney.
Ross Geller[edit]
Dr. Ross Eustace Geller, Ph.D. (David Schwimmer) is a paleontologist at a museum of prehistory, and later a professor of paleontology at New York University. The most intelligent of the six main characters, but at the same time a clumsy, quirky man, Ross is known for being a smart, know-it-all who prides himself on his rationality, despite his clear hopeless romanticism. He is shown to be the most caring of all the six members in the various instances on the show.
Ross is Monica's older brother, Chandler's college roommate, and Rachel's on-again, off-again boyfriend. His first marriage has already failed by the time the show begins, with his second lasting mere weeks. He also drunkenly married Rachel in Las Vegas, but the marriage is annulled. Ross's relationship with Rachel is a major storyline throughout the series. He is also the father of his ex-wife Carol's son, Ben, and Rachel's daughter, Emma. In the series finale, Ross and Rachel finally reconcile, deciding to be together once and for all.
The character of Ross was developed with David Schwimmer in the minds of writers and Schwimmer was also the first actor to be cast on the show.
Before being cast in Friends, Schwimmer played minor characters in The Wonder Years and NYPD Blue;[23] his first regular series role was in the sitcom Monty. Schwimmer is the only cast member native to New York City.
Ross Geller was also voted as the best character on Friends in a poll conducted by Comedy Central UK.[24]
Characters recurring throughout series[edit]
Each of the following characters of Friends may or may not be particularly significant to the story of the series; each was introduced in one season and would usually appear in subsequent seasons.
Introduced in season 1[edit]
Jack and Judy Geller[edit]
Jack (Elliott Gould) and Judy Geller (Christina Pickles): Ross and Monica's parents. In early appearances, Jack frequently makes inappropriate comments, which he punctuates by exclaiming "I'm just saying...!" Judy often makes condescending remarks about Monica's lack of a love life and sometimes forgets her daughter even exists, while simultaneously favoring Ross. Jack is more balanced in his attention and care towards both Ross and Monica. After the Gellers sell their house in season 7, it is revealed that Jack has used boxes of Monica's old stuff to block rainwater from getting to his Porsche. Due to his gnawing guilt, Jack develops a secret smoking habit and decides to gift Monica the Porsche. Despite being favored throughout his entire childhood, this makes Ross insanely jealous.
Despite each of them having their own quirks, however, they are both occasionally dumbfounded by the crazy antics of their son and daughter, such as Ross' disastrous wedding to Emily and Monica's ridiculous speech at their 35th anniversary party. They are also sometimes bemused by the antics of the other four friends, such as idiotic or crazy comments from Phoebe and/or Joey, a revolting trifle cooked by Rachel which Joey is happy to eat and Chandler entering a coed whirlpool alongside Jack without wearing anything underneath the towel wrapped around his waist.
Pickles was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance in "The One Where Nana Dies Twice" in 1995.[e 3][not in citation given] The Seattle Times ranked Jack and Judy jointly as the second best guest character of the series in 2004.[25]
Barry Farber[edit]
Barry Farber (Mitchell Whitfield): Rachel's jilted fiancé. Barry, an orthodontist, decides to go on his and Rachel's honeymoon with her maid of honor Mindy, and soon begins a relationship with her. Their relationship hits a rough patch when he and Rachel consider getting back together.[e 4] He decides to stay with Mindy, and the two are later married. Rachel is invited to the wedding, but receives a cold reception for jilting Barry while she is there, and a ridiculous speech from Ross which bemuses everyone in the room does not exactly improve the situation for her, until she, in a desperate attempt to salvage some pride, walks onto the stage where the microphone is and starts singing.[e 5] Barry and Mindy are said to have divorced five years later, after she found out he was cheating on her.[e 6] Barry's last name is given as "Finkle" in the pilot[e 1] and "Farber" in every other appearance except in "The One with the Flashback",[e 7] where he is referred to as "Barry Barber". He has also been called "Barry White", and is possibly[original research?] named as an homage to long-time NY talk show host Barry Farber. Barry is portrayed as a horrible, selfish little man who cheats, lies, and belittles other people. Getting both Rachel and Mindy to fall for him also suggests[original research?] that he is manipulative.
Carol Willick and Susan Bunch[edit]
Carol Willick (Anita Barone for character's debut episode, Jane Sibbett thereafter) and Susan Bunch (Jessica Hecht): Carol is Ross' lesbian ex-wife, who came out before the pilot, and Susan is her partner. Carol dumped and divorced Ross to be with Susan. In the second episode of the series, Carol tells Ross that she is pregnant with his child,[e 8] and is having the baby with her partner Susan, though she wishes Ross to be part of the baby's life. Carol and Susan are often bemused by Ross' quirks throughout his onscreen appearances with them. Susan does not attempt to hide her contempt of Ross and vice versa, but they briefly put aside their differences when Carol gives birth to a boy, whom they all agree, after weeks of argument, to name Ben.[e 9] Carol and Susan get married in "The One with the Lesbian Wedding"[e 10] and make irregular appearances until "The One That Could Have Been" (Susan),[e 6] and "The One with the Truth About London" (Carol). Though Ross and Carol are on good terms after their divorce, Ross continues to resent Susan for losing Carol to her.[e 11]
Carol and Susan were based on creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane's best friends in New York: "We didn't create them for any particular political reason or because of lesbian chic. It was just an opportunity to tell a really interesting story."[26] The characters were called a positive example of a gay couple on television by GLAAD. Jessica Hecht originally auditioned to play Monica.[27]
Gunther[edit]
Gunther (James Michael Tyler): The manager of the Central Perk coffee house, who first appears as a background character in "The One with the Sonogram at the End". He is a former actor who once played Bryce on All My Children before that character was "killed in an avalanche."[e 12] Gunther develops an unrequited crush on Rachel in the third season, which he keeps to himself until "The Last One".[e 2] Apart from Ross, whom he dislikes, he is on reasonably good terms with the rest of the gang despite occasionally being annoyed by wacky antics or comments from them. His motivation for disliking Ross is jealousy (as he is aware of Ross' relationship with Rachel), which is made clear numerous times, most notably in "The One the Morning After" when he reveals to Rachel that Ross (who mistakenly thought at the time that his relationship with her was over—"We were on a break") got drunk and cheated on her.[e 13] Gunther appears in nearly every episode, but only occasionally calls attention to himself and almost never has a large role in the plot of an episode. In "The One With The Stain",[e 14] Gunther is shown to be fluent in Dutch (although with a strong American accent), calling Ross an "ezel" as he converses with him.
James Michael Tyler was cast as Gunther because he was the only extra who could competently work the cappuccino machine on the Central Perk set. Tyler appears as Gunther in a co-host voice-over in the Friends trivia game for PS2, PC and Xbox, and in the board game Friends: Scene It?. The Seattle Times ranked Gunther as the eighth best guest character of the series in 2004.[25] When asked in 2009 by Heatworld.com what Gunther would be doing "now", Tyler joked, "He'd probably have a very traditional marriage, with lots of white-haired babies running around with hair brighter than the sun."[28] Aside from the main cast, he appears in the most episodes.
Marcel[edit]
Marcel (live animal actor): A Capuchin monkey that Ross initially keeps as a pet,[e 15] and who provides comic relief for his geeky master. One time Rachel loses him in the city,[e 16] and calls Animal Control—only to learn from Ross that Marcel is an illegal exotic animalthat cannot be kept in the city. After unsuccessfully trying to prevent animal control officer Luisa (Megan Cavanagh) from discovering that they are harboring an illegal exotic animal and bemusing her with their wacky behavior throughout these unsuccessful attempts, Rachel, Monica, Ross and Phoebe learn that Luisa is a former classmate of Rachel's and Monica's who upon recognizing Rachel attempts to spite her for snubbing her in high school by attempting to confiscate Marcel. To prevent this, Rachel threatens to tell Luisa's boss about how she shot Phoebe "in the ass with a dart" that had been meant for Marcel. Later, as Marcel sexually matures and begins to hump everything, Ross has to give him away to a zoo[e 17]—"where he can have access to regular monkey-lovin'." Ultimately, Ross finds out that Marcel then got stolen from the zoo and taken into a life of show business, and—after starring in a liquor commercial—is starring in a movie in New York,[e 18] where they are reunited one last time. In a later season Ross questions why he had a monkey as a pet.
Janice Goralnik[edit]
Janice Litman Goralnik (née Hosenstein) (Maggie Wheeler): Chandler's on-again, off-again girlfriend for the first four seasons. Janice is one of the few characters besides the six main friends who appears in all of the Friends seasons. She has a nasal voice, a machine gun laugh (similar to Boycie from Only Fools and Horses) and a thick New York accent that sounds so irritating that it makes Chandler want to break up with her, but at the same time he does not want to hurt the nonetheless good-natured Janice's feelings. While making a hand gesture in the midst of an attempt to break up with her without upsetting her, he accidentally pokes her in the eye in "The One with the East German Laundry Detergent"[e 19] and although Phoebe is eventually able to explain to Janice on his behalf that he wants to end their relationship and get her to agree to break up with him without upsetting her in the process, he gets back together with her for New Year's[e 15] and for Valentine's.[e 20] When Chandler, in the wake of Mr. Heckles' death, resolves not to die alone,[e 21] he is disappointed to discover that she is married and pregnant. In "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding",[e 5] Chandler arranges a meeting with a mystery woman over the Internet, who turns out to be Janice. Their relationship lasts into the third season, when Janice decides to leave her husband to be with Chandler. Later, Joey sees Janice kissing her husband, who runs a mattress business.[e 22] Chandler dumps her in "The One with the Giant Poking Device".[e 23] When Janice returns to his life,[e 24] Chandler, who eventually comes to find her insufferable due to the irritating sound of her voice, pretends to be moving to Yemen to get away from her. In a later episode, the tables are turned on the annoying natured Janice when she has a brief fling with Ross shortly after he has broken up with Emily, as he is unhappy and spends the entire date complaining about everything, causing her to find him insufferable and leave him (Ross had expected the reverse to eventually happen, but had been happy to date someone who listened so well to him in the meantime).[e 25] She also makes a cameo on a "discovered" mix tape that Chandler plays for Monica, not knowing Janice's voice is on it.[e 26] When Chandler and Monica become engaged, she tries to interfere with their wedding plans—leaving only when Monica states that Chandler still has feelings for Janice, which is not true.[e 27] When Ross and Rachel await the birth of their daughter Emma,[e 28] she is placed in the same labor room as Rachel at the hospital; she later gives birth to a son, Aaron, who she jokes will be Emma's future husband. As Monica and Chandler make plans to have children,[e 29] she offers Chandler advice and support at a fertility clinic. In "The One Where Estelle Dies",[e 30] she comes close to buying a house next door to the one Monica and Chandler want to buy. To get rid of her, Chandler pretends he still loves her, causing her to (as he had hoped) become fearful that he will end up ruining his marriage and she will end up ruining her own (as she still loves Chandler as well) if she lives next door to him, so she decides not to buy the house after all and walks out of Chandler's life seemingly for good, but does kiss him one last time before she does, much to his surprise.
Presumably due to being amused by their wacky, quirky, goofy personalities, Janice seems to enjoy spending time with the six friends, which is somewhat ironic and very much inconvenient for them since none of them can stand to be around her (although she seems to be completely blind to the fact that they feel this way, showing almost no awareness whatsoever of the fact that they hate having to put up with her), due to the unbearably irritating nasal New York accent she speaks with, and her annoying machine gun laugh.[original research?] She also emphasizes each word of her catchphrase, "Ohhh—myyy—Gawd!", and Chandler sometimes imitates her doing this. Janice's distinctive laugh was born out of a slip-up Wheeler made during the rehearsal of "The One with the East German Laundry Detergent";[e 19] after Chandler and Janice's "More latte?"/"No, I'm still working on mine" lines, Wheeler laughed.[29] The Seattle Times ranked Janice as the best guest character of the series in 2004.[25]
Mr. Heckles[edit]
Mr. Heckles (Larry Hankin): Monica and Rachel's downstairs neighbor, a domineering, highly unusual elderly man who constantly complains about the noise, even though the six friends are being perfectly decent in volume whenever he claims that they are disturbing him. His reason for this is never revealed, until "The One Where Mr Heckles Dies", in which the group discover that the noises being made in their apartment are apparently amplified in his, and when Chandler hears banging coming from the above room while in Heckles' apartment (although it is never revealed exactly what the people upstairs were doing to cause the banging) it annoys him so much that he inadvertently imitates Heckles by banging on the roof with his broom.[e 21] He appears in "The One with Two Parts, Part 1"[e 31] and "The One Where the Monkey Gets Away"[e 16] before dying in "The One Where Mr. Heckles Dies".[e 21] As a last spiteful act, he leaves all of his junk to "the noisy girls in the apartment above mine". He makes a final cameo appearance in "The One with the Flashback",[e 7]set in 1993, where he complains that Phoebe's noise is disturbing his oboe practice (even though he does not actually play the oboe), and inadvertently (and cruelly) causes Joey to be Chandler's roommate. He usually states that items are his, and when the other person states that he does not have one, Mr. Heckles says that he could have one. For instance, when Rachel and Phoebe are searching for the owner of a lost cat, Mr. Heckles said "Yes, that's my cat." They told him he did not have a cat, to which he responded "I could have a cat." According to Mr. Treeger, Mr. Heckles died of a heart attack, while 'sweeping'. His first appearance in the series was in Season 1, "The One With the Blackout", where he is credited simply "as the Weird Man".
Paolo[edit]
Paolo (Cosimo Fusco): an Italian neighbor in Rachel's building, who Rachel meets and hooks up with in "The One with the Blackout".[e 32] They start dating, making Ross jealous. She dumps him after he gropes Phoebe[e 33] but has a last one-night stand with him in "The One with Ross's New Girlfriend".[e 34] In the Italian version of the show, Paolo's name is changed to Pablo and his nationality is Spanish.
Terry[edit]
Terry (Max Wright): the original manager at Central Perk before Gunther takes the title, who does not hide the fact that he thinks Rachel is a terrible waitress—and Phoebe is "so bad" as a musician. He denies her an advance on her wages in "The One Where Underdog Gets Away"[e 35] and hires a professional musician, Stephanie Schiffer (played by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders), to replace Phoebe in "The One with the Baby on the Bus".[e 36]
Fun Bobby[edit]
"Fun Bobby" (Robert) (Vincent Ventresca): Monica's alcoholic boyfriend. In his first appearance in "The One with the Monkey",[e 15] his "fun" is sapped at Monica's New Year's party after his grandfather died, but his depression does not stop Monica, annoyed that he's "bringing her party down" from putting a party horn in his mouth and forcing him to blow on it, to his bemusement. In "The One with Russ",[e 37] the gang discovers that alcohol puts the "fun" into Fun Bobby. Monica tries to wean him off drinking but regrets it when he becomes extremely boring. Monica then began drinking on their dates, so that she could sit through his mind-numbingly dull stories. It is revealed in the episode "The One with Phoebe's Husband" that the underwear on the telephone pole was Monica's when she was having sex with Fun Bobby on the terrace.[e 38]
David[edit]
David, "the Scientist Guy" (Hank Azaria): a physicist with whom Phoebe falls in love in "The One with the Monkey", when he receives an academic grant for a three-year research trip to Minsk (incorrectly described in the script as being in Russia, rather than Belarus).[e 15] After a quarrel with his research partner Max (Wayne Pére), David decides to take the trip, breaking Phoebe's heart. Seven years later, he returns to New York for a brief visit and shares an evening with Phoebe.[e 39] Two years later, he returns permanently in "The One with the Male Nanny".[e 40] He and Phoebe resume their relationship in "The One with the Donor".[e 41] In "The One in Barbados—Part 1", David proposes to Phoebe but is turned down in favor of Mike Hannigan.[e 42]
In 2003, Azaria was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance.[30] Azaria originally auditioned for the role of Joey.[31]
Nora Tyler Bing[edit]
Nora Tyler Bing (Morgan Fairchild): Chandler's mother, a best-selling erotic novelist whose works include Euphoria Unbound, Euphoria At Midnight and Mistress Bitch. She first appears in "The One with Mrs. Bing",[e 43] where she meets the gang while on a book tour in New York. After dinner, she kisses Ross. She makes a cameo appearance in the flashback scenes of "The One with All the Thanksgivings"[e 44] and later appears in "The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding" (with Kathleen Turner as Chandler's dad)[e 45] and "The One After 'I Do'".[e 46] The Seattle Times ranked Nora and her ex-husband jointly as the fifth best guest characters in 2004.[25]
Ursula Buffay[edit]
Ursula Pamela Buffay (Lisa Kudrow): Phoebe's identical twin. Kudrow originated the role of Ursula in the sitcom Mad About You, playing her as an inept waitress at Riff's who frequently forgets orders.[m 1] Ursula is every bit as odd as Phoebe is, but, unlike her sister, Ursula is a selfish, amoral, abrasive, brazen and hedonistic individual who is so self-absorbed and self-centered that she often forgets things, usually treats Phoebe with disdain and is not liked by anyone who truly knows her. Phoebe refers to Ursula as her "evil twin." She first appears in Friends in "The One with Two Parts":[e 31] Chandler and Joey are eating at Riff's and mistake Ursula for Phoebe. Joey becomes attracted to Ursula and they start dating. Ursula tells Phoebe that she is bored with Joey and sarcastically claims that he is smart enough to figure this out on his own without her having to actually tell him (implying his stupidity irritated her, hence her naturally nasty reaction), so Phoebe pretends to be her sister to let Joey down gently. In the same episode, Helen Hunt and Leila Kenzle cameo as their Mad About You characters Jamie Buchman and Fran Devanow, in a scene where they mistake Phoebe for Ursula in Central Perk. Ursula next appears briefly in "The One with the Jam",[e 47] where she is being stalked by a man (David Arquette) who mistakes Phoebe for her. Phoebe naively begins a relationship with the man in question, but ends it with him when he cannot get over his obsession with Ursula. In "The One with the Jellyfish"[e 48] Phoebe tells Ursula that she has met their birth mother (Teri Garr), but Ursula already knows about her. In "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry",[e 49] Phoebe starts getting unwanted attention from men, and discovers that Ursula is starring in pornographic films using Phoebe's name, including a film called "Buffay The Vampire Layer". Phoebe gets revenge by claiming Ursula's cheques and embarrassing her many male fans. Flashbacks in "The One Where They All Turn Thirty"[e 50] reveal that Ursula sold Phoebe's birth certificate to a Swedish runaway, and that both sisters are 31, not 30. In "The One with the Halloween Party",[e 51] Ursula introduces Phoebe to Eric (Sean Penn), her fiancé. Phoebe is horrified that Ursula has told Eric that she is a teacher, a member of the Peace Corps, a non-smoker, and attends a church group (all lies). The series finale of Mad About You, set 22 years into the future, reveals that after a successful porn career, Ursula becomes Governor of New York.[m 2]
Mindy Hunter-Farber[edit]
Mindy Hunter-Farber (Jennifer Grey in "The One with the Evil Orthodontist",[e 4] Jana Marie Hupp in "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding"[e 5]): Rachel's maid of honor at her abortive wedding to Barry. Mindy and Rachel were best friends while growing up and their friendship is tested after Rachel discovers Mindy and Barry are seeing each other. She asks Rachel to be her maid of honor and dress in a garish pink dress. Mindy marries Barry in "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding";[e 5] but he later cheats on her and she has divorced him by "The One That Could Have Been, Part 1".[e 6]
Ben Geller[edit]
Ben (Various actors, 1995–1999; Cole Sprouse, 2000–2002): Ross and Carol's son, born during "The One with the Birth".[e 9] Ben is played as an infant by Michael Gunderson, by brothers Charles Thomas Allen and John Christopher Allen from Season 3 to 5, and by Cole Sprouse from Season 6 to 8.
Julie[edit]
Julie (Lauren Tom): an old graduate school colleague of Ross', whom he meets again while on a trip to China; she first appears in the final scene of the season 1 finale.[e 52] They start dating but break up soon after, when Ross reveals he loves Rachel.[e 53] During the entire time Julie and Ross were dating, Rachel hated the relationship because about a week before Ross came home from China, Rachel discovered that Ross was in love with her. This made Rachel's feelings for Ross grow at a fast rate, making her jealous of Julie's relationship with him. After her break-up, she is then shown to meet Russ, a Ross doppelgänger also played by David Schwimmer, and begin a romance.
Steve[edit]
Steve (Jon Lovitz): a restaurant owner and drug addict whom Phoebe knows. In 1995, Monica tries to impress him in an attempt to get a job at his restaurant, and Phoebe tells him he is welcome to go to her apartment and try her food there, but he gets stoned on the journey there and consequently acts obnoxious. At the end of the episode, Phoebe punishes him by giving him a very painful massage.[e 54] His drug problem eventually causes him to lose his restaurant, and, in 2003, Phoebe later fixes Rachel up with him (and Ross with nobody) on a blind date, as part of a secret strategy to get Rachel and Ross back together.[e 55]
Ugly Naked Guy[edit]
Ugly Naked Guy (Jon Haugen): an obese tenant in the apartment in the building across from Monica's apartment—who frequently, perhaps invariably, is naked with the drapes open—so the gang is frequently commenting on his activities—playing cello, wearing "gravity boots", etc. He is first mentioned in the second episode of the series,[e 8] but only appears twice: first, his belly and an arm are shown in "The One with the Giant Poking Device"[e 23]—in which he is being poked from across the street by the gang (who think he is dead) with a long device made from chopsticks; second, a rear view of him from head to waist is shown in "The One Where Everybody Finds Out"[e 56] (his final show)—in which he is moving out of his apartment and Ross tries gets the apartment by ingratiating himself with Ugly Naked Guy by cavorting with him in the nude. (In "The One with the Flashback",[e 7] it is learned that he used to be "Cute Naked Guy", but then, in 1993, started putting on weight.)
For many years, the identity of the actor that played him in his extremely limited appearances was a mystery. It was speculated that Michael G. Hagerty, the actor who played Mr. Treeger, was Ugly Naked Guy. However, Hagerty denied this theory. On May 31, 2016, an article was published by Todd Van Luling in The Huffington Post, detailing his search for the identity of Ugly Naked Guy. His article revealed that an actor named Jon Haugen played the role.[32]
Introduced in season 2[edit]
Mr. Treeger[edit]
Mr. Treeger (Michael G. Hagerty): the superintendent of Monica's building. Treeger first appears in "The One Where Heckles Dies",[e 21] where he shows Heckles's lawyer where Monica and Rachel live. He next appears in "The One with Phoebe's Dad",[e 57] where Monica thinks he is playing hardball by not mending her broken radiator, and Treeger is left bewildered as Ross, Monica and Rachel repeatedly attempt to convince him to have it fixed despite his attempts to explain that he will not be able to replace the knob Ross accidentally broke off because the shop does not open until the following Tuesday. Later, when Joey rebuffs him for putting down Rachel,[e 58] he threatens to have Monica and Rachel evicted unless Joey helps him practice ballroom dancing to impress a woman (as Monica is illegally subletting the apartment which actually belongs to her late grandmother, to Treeger's irritation). In "The One with the Free Porn",[e 59] he cleans the shower drain of Chandler and Joey's newly-won apartment, and warns them never to turn off their TV after they start receiving free porn. In his final appearance,[e 60] he has a fireman break down the door to Monica's apartment after Joey tells him he smelled gas. He was also mentioned in the series finale when Monica said to everyone he needs their keys to her and Rachel's apartment.
Estelle Leonard[edit]
Estelle Leonard (June Gable): Joey's talent agent. Gable made her first appearance as Estelle in "The One with the Butt",[e 61] but the scene was cut for timing reasons although it is included in the DVD version of season 1 (she is still mentioned after Joey's play in the original episode that aired). She makes her first proper appearance in "The One with Russ",[e 37] when, after Joey tells Estelle he is fed up of poor roles, she gets him a recurring part in Days of Our Lives. She witnesses Marshall Townend read a critical review of a play he had directed which Joey had starred in and along with everyone else in the room is bemused by the quirks of both Joey and Marshall in "The One with the Screamer".[e 62] Although she is shown to be supportive of Joey's career over the course of the show, in one episode, however, she appears to undermine his career[e 63] after getting the impression that Joey had left her as an agent, which he in reality had not. She dies in the last season;[e 30] Joey gives a speech at her memorial service, where it is revealed that her only other client is Al Zebooker, a man who eats paper.
When Gable auditioned for the role, she played Estelle quite plainly and was encouraged to "go away and do something with her". She returned to the audition room wearing a "fat suit" and eating a sandwich from a delicatessen, which she stubbed out a cigarette on. The performance was used in the deleted scene of "The One with the Butt".[e 61] Her age is never given but Gable believed that she was in her 80s.[33] In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Estelle as the sixth best guest character of the series.[25] Gable also plays the nurse who delivers Ben in "The One with the Birth"
Richard Burke[edit]
Dr. Richard Burke (Tom Selleck): an ophthalmologist and best friend of Jack Geller. Richard is introduced in "The One Where Ross and Rachel … You Know"[e 64] when Monica caters an event at his apartment. He begins to date her despite being 21 years older, infuriating Monica's parents when they find out.[e 65] He and Monica break up in "The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding"[e 5] when he tells her he does not want more children, his own having already reached adulthood. Despite the two still being in love, they cannot reconcile this difference, and are both devastated for months. He makes a brief voice cameo in "The One Where No One's Ready",[e 66] and later they briefly attempt to rekindle their romance as "friends" before accepting that the reasons they broke up remain valid.[e 67] In "The One with the Proposal",[e 68] he proposes to Monica after she leaves Chandler, who's planning to propose but pretends to be against marriage because he "wants it to be a surprise". Eventually, Chandler comes to his apartment searching for Monica and tells Richard of his own proposal plan. Richard seems to lack sympathy for Chandler at first, responding to Chandler explaining away his plan to make her initially think he was against marriage by stating it had "worked very well" but when Chandler angrily tells him he has no right to ruin another man's relationship with her because he's already ruined his own, he realizes Chandler is right and tells him, "You go get her, Chandler. And can I give you a bit of advice? If you get her, don't let her go. Trust me"—noting that he hates the fact that he is a nice guy when Chandler thanks him. His apartment is put up for sale in Season 9, in "The One with Ross's Inappropriate Song",[e 69] but Richard is not seen. While there, Chandler finds out that Richard made a sex tape with Monica which he steals and watches, but he and Monica later discover that Richard taped over her, relieving Chandler but leaving Monica feeling insulted.
All of Selleck's entrances in Season 2 had to be refilmed after the audience left because "it was like The Beatles with the screaming and the applause".[34] For his appearance in "The One with the Proposal",[e 68] in 2000, Selleck, for his final episode, was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.[35] In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Richard as the third best guest character of the series.[25]
Sandra Green[edit]
Sandra Green (Marlo Thomas): Rachel's overprotective mother. In "The One with the Lesbian Wedding",[e 10] she announces to Rachel that she never loved Rachel's father and is divorcing him. ("You didn't marry your Barry, honey—but Imarried mine.") She later accompanies everyone to Carol and Susan's wedding. In "The One with the Two Parties",[e 70] she arrives at Rachel's birthday party and is unaware for the whole night that her ex-husband is also there, as the six friends successfully prevent them from finding out each other are there by setting up two different parties, bemusing them both with their strange, wacky behavior in the process; Joey even ends up kissing Sandra to distract her from her ex-husband's departure. In "The One with the Baby Shower",[e 71] she is invited at the last minute to attend Rachel's baby shower, where she offers to move in with Ross and Rachel to help with the baby's first months; Ross and Rachel first accept, then change their minds.
For her appearance in "The One with the Lesbian Wedding", Thomas was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 1996.[36]
Frances[edit]
Frances (Audra Lindley): Phoebe's grandmother by her mother Lily. Her only appearance is in "The One with Phoebe's Dad",[e 57] where she reveals to Phoebe that the person in the pictures she keeps around the house is not Phoebe's father, which motivates Phoebe to try to track down her real father. Though the character appears in only one episode, she is mentioned in a few more, including in season 5's "The One with Joey's Bag",[e 72] where it is revealed that she has recently died and Phoebe plans her funeral. Phoebe inherits her grandmother's yellow taxi and apartment. She keeps the taxi until the very end of the series.
Frank Buffay Jr.[edit]
Frank Buffay Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi): Phoebe's half-brother by their father. In "The One with the Bullies",[e 73] Phoebe meets him after finding the courage to knock on her father's suburban door, but learns from Frank Jr.'s mother (played by Laraine Newman) that her father walked out several years ago. Despite not finding her father, she connects with Frank Jr. who later visits the city[e 74] where he hits on Jasmine, one of Phoebe's coworkers, and mistakes her massage parlor for a whorehouse. He eventually falls in love with and becomes engaged to Alice Knight (Debra Jo Rupp), his old home economics teacher who is 26 years his senior.[e 75] In "The One With Phoebe's Uterus",[e 76] Frank and Alice ask Phoebe to be a surrogate mother for their child, and she later gives birth to their triplets, whom she then says goodbye to in an emotional scene in "The One Hundredth". [e 77] Frank makes a final appearance in "The One Where Ross is Fine",[e 78] when he and the triplets meet Phoebe at Central Perk. In the episode, he claims he "hasn't slept in four years" and is so exhausted with raising the triplets he even proposed that Phoebe take one for her own. However, he soon realizes he loves his children too much to give any of them up, after which Phoebe proposes to start babysitting them, so that Frank and Alice can enjoy some more time off.
Previously, Ribisi appeared in "The One with the Baby on the Bus" as a stranger who leaves a condom rather than money in Phoebe's guitar case when she is singing in the street, and then comes back to retrieve it. It was never addressed if this was intended to be the same character as Frank, who had not yet been introduced by name. [e 36]
In 2004, The Seattle Times ranked Frank as the fourth-best guest character of the series.[25] Alice was only scheduled to appear in the one episode but was brought back for a recurring role after the surrogacy storyline—which was created when actor Lisa Kudrow became pregnant.[37]
Leonard Green[edit]
Leonard "Lenny" Green (Ron Leibman): Rachel's father, a surly, abrasive and rather amoral vascular surgeon; although he is genuinely affectionate and usually good-natured towards his daughter, he is generally a nasty, mean-spirited bully who is quick to insult anyone who, even by accident, irritates him in the slightest way. He takes an instant dislike to his daughter's boyfriend Ross when the latter refers to Green's profession as "a game."[e 70] Later, when Ross and Rachel conceive a child (Emma), he becomes furious that they're not engaged because he does not want his grandchild to be a bastard and ends up going to Ross' apartment and shouting at him because Rachel (who is afraid of Leonard's anger) lied to him and claimed that Ross refused to ask her to marry him, leading Rachel to eventually clarify the situation for him.[e 79] He has a heart attack in "The One Where Joey Speaks French"[e 80] and is recovering in the hospital when Ross turns up with Rachel, though he once again is not willing to treat with any kindness or respect.
Although Leonard, like his daughter Amy, was a deliberately unpleasant and unlikeable character, the comic relief he provided caused him, again like his daughter Amy, to become memorable as a character fans[clarification needed] "loved to hate."[original research?]
Introduced in season 3[edit]
Mark Robinson[edit]
Mark Robinson (Steven Eckholdt): Rachel's deskmate at Bloomingdale's, who first appears in "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister" (airdate January 9, 1997; Season 3, No. 11). Ross is jealous of Mark as he mistakenly suspects that he and Rachel are having an affair. It is Mark's presence at Rachel's apartment after he offered to provide her with comfort after her fight with Ross which leads Ross, overhearing his voice in the background after phoning Rachel and mistakenly thinking he is there to have sex with her, to become convinced that his relationship with her is now over and, after angrily hanging up, get drunk and sleep with Chloe[e 81] ultimately ending Ross and Rachel's relationship. Later, Mark asks Rachel on a date and she accepts, however she rejects his advances when she realizes she only accepted the offer to get back at Ross.[e 82] That is the last time Mark is seen until "The One with Princess Consuela",[e 83] where he informs Rachel of a job in Paris. Ross fails to recognize him but becomes jealous all over again once reminded, even declaring his extreme hatred of Mark and forbids Rachel of going to dinner with him. It is also revealed that since his previous appearance he has married and had kids (twins, actually) - once informed of this, an embarrassed Ross wonders "Should we send something?"
Sophie[edit]
Sophie (Laura Dean): Mark's replacement. Sophie is frequently victimized by her boss Joanna and occasionally bewildered by ridiculous comments from Chandler (who had a brief relationship with Joanna). In the episode "The One Where They're Going to Party!",[e 84]she is ecstatic about Joanna's death.
Joanna[edit]
Joanna (Alison LaPlaca): Rachel's boss, who despite being occasionally bewildered by his ridiculous comments, dates Chandler in two episodes (once in season 3,[e 85] once in season 4[e 86]). She is hostile to her assistant, Sophie, but usually good-natured towards Rachel. After deliberately sabotaging Rachel's promotion in order to keep her, she finally offers Rachel a promotion within her own department,[e 84] but is knocked down and killed by a cab before she can effect it.
Doug[edit]
Douglas "Doug" (Sam McMurray): Chandler's new boss in "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion".[e 87] Doug enjoys calling Chandler "Bing!" and slapping his male colleagues on the butt. Monica and Chandler play a game of tennis with Doug and his wife, who are left exhausted, irritated and bewildered by Monica's ridiculously overly-competitive attitude in "The One with Chandler's Work Laugh" (January 21, 1999; Season 5, No. 12). In this episode, it is implied that he, his wife, and the rest of Chandler's co-workers all dislike Joey, whom Chandler claims damaged his reputation in their eyes (presumably with all his stupidity) after he invited him to a work office party, damage repaired by Monica when he invited her to a different one. In "The One with Ross's Step Forward" (airdate December 13; 2001; Season 8, No. 11), he invites Monica and Chandler to dinner to celebrate his divorce. To get out of it, Chandler pretends that he wants to be on his own because he and Monica have split up but it backfires when Doug, who despite his seemingly cheerful and relieved attitude towards his divorce is in reality clearly depressed over it, tries to cheer Chandler up by taking him to strip clubs, drunkenly throwing cans at birds and throwing (Doug's) wedding ring into the gutter (Chandler had refused Doug's offer at first, but then made the mistake of thoughtlessly stating his reason for this as being that Monica would not appreciate it, only to then be forced to correct himself upon seeing Doug's confused expression).
Bonnie[edit]
Bonnie (Christine Taylor): Phoebe's formerly bald friend, first mentioned in episode "The One with the Candy Hearts" (although referred to as 'Abby' then), whom she sets up with Ross in "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion". Rachel met Bonnie two years prior to the events of this episode, and remembers her as a "weird bald chick"; however, when Rachel meets her she is horrified to see that her hair has actually grown back and she is actually a very attractive woman. Since Rachel still has feelings for Ross, she, in a successful attempt to make Bonnie less attractive to him, convinces her to shave her hair off again in "The One at the Beach" (airdate May 15, 1997; Season 3, No. 25). She makes a brief appearance at the beginning of "The One with the Jellyfish", when Ross decides to dump her and get back together with Rachel. He implies that he made a dreadful mess of breaking up with her, both upsetting and enraging her in the process.
Phoebe Abbott[edit]
Phoebe Abbott (Teri Garr): Phoebe's birth mother. Phoebe tracks her down in "The One at the Beach", believing her to be a friend of Lily's. She reveals her parentage at the end of the episode and makes amends with Phoebe in "The One with the Jellyfish". Later, when Phoebe wants to be a surrogate mother for Frank and Alice's child,[e 76] she lends Phoebe her puppy to demonstrate how difficult it is to give up children after carrying them.
The Chick and the Duck[edit]
The Chick and the Duck (live animal actors): Chandler and Joey's pet birds. In "The One With a Chick and a Duck.", Joey adopts a chick from an animal sanctuary, misunderstanding a news report about people who buy chicks and then find they cannot properly care for them. Encouraged by Phoebe to return the chick, but discovering that the animals would be euthanized, Chandler, who went to give the chick back, returns home with the chick and a duck. Chandler and Joey treat the chick and the duck as their own children—at one point, Chandler punishes the duck by sending him out to the hall ("You stay out here and think about what you did!").
Chandler briefly names the chick "Yasmine", after Baywatch actress Yasmine Bleeth (the chick later, however, turns out to be a rooster, not a hen); and in "The One With Ross's Thing", Chandler refers to the possible offspring of the duck and the chick as "Dick", while Joey refers to it as "Chuck". By Season 6 the animals disappeared; the duck was mentioned but not seen in Season 7. In the final episode of the series,[e 2] Joey bought Chandler a new duckling and chick as a housewarming gift—which Joey names "Duck Jr." and "Chick Jr."—and it is revealed that the original birds died a while ago, and Chandler, not wanting Joey to be upset about it, told him that they had gone to live on a farm, where visitors were not allowed.
Introduced in season 4[edit]
Stu[edit]
Stuart "Stu" (Fred Stoller): a waiter at the restaurant Allesandro's, where Monica gets a job in "The One Where They're Going to Party!" In "The One with the Girl from Poughkeepsie" (airdate December 19, 1997; Season 4, No. 10), Stu leads a kitchen staff rebellion against Monica (his motivation being partly that she had written an extremely critical review of the restaurant's food and service in the paper prior to being hired to work there herself, which he and the rest of the staff had felt publicly humiliated by and partly that a member of his family lost his job after she replaced him as the head chef), locking her in a cold storage room and writing insults on her chef's hat. Monica hires Joey as a stooge so she can show her authority in front of the staff by firing him in front of them all, and the rebellion soon ends. In "The One with the Stripper",[e 79] Stu gives Monica the phone number of someone she assumes is a stripper for Chandler's belated bachelor party, though she turns out to be a prostitute.
Emily Waltham[edit]
Emily Waltham (Helen Baxendale): The English niece of Rachel's boss Mr. Waltham, who arrives for a two-week visit to New York in "The One with Joey's Dirty Day". She has a whirlwind romance with Ross and they decide to get married. Her friendly relationship with Rachel soon changes during the wedding. The friends fly to London for their wedding in "The One with Ross's Wedding" (airdate May 7, 1998; Season 4, No. 23 & 24), and Ross accidentally says Rachel's name at the altar, humiliating Emily in front of her friends and family. She aims to reconcile with him at the airport in "The One After Ross Says Rachel" (airdate September 24, 1998; Season 5, No. 1) but sees Rachel with him and storms out again. Ross tries to convince her to move to New York.[e 88] She agrees but makes him promise to get rid of everything Rachel has ever come into physical contact with, in the friends' apartments, which would be virtually impossible, and she demands that he never see Rachel again. When she learns that he's having dinner with the old gang—including Rachel—she tells him she cannot trust him and she decides to end the marriage. She makes a final voice cameo in "The One with the Ride Along",[e 89] when she leaves a message on Ross's answering machine the night before her new wedding, telling him she is having second thoughts about it and is worried that they made a mistake splitting up. Rachel accidentally deletes the message, but tells Ross about it and convinces him not to respond to it. Emily's surname is that of the city where both creators of the show attended college.
Patsy Kensit was originally approached to play the role but turned it down.[38] Emily and Ross's marriage was intended to last much longer in the series, but Helen Baxendale became pregnant prior to Season 5 and was unable to travel for the show; hence, her limited appearances after Season 4.[39] Helen Baxendale was asked to reprise the role in Season 10, but turned it down to star in the West End play After Miss Julie, and because she did not want the same level of tabloid attention she received in 1998.[40]
Stephen and Andrea Waltham[edit]
Stephen (Tom Conti) and Andrea Waltham (Jennifer Saunders): Emily's father and shrewish stepmother, introduced in "The One with Ross's Wedding, Part 2". Their marriage is icy and they openly treat one another with disdain. They are equally hostile towards Jack and Judy Geller when the Gellers refuse to pay for their house to be remodelled after the wedding reception. When the wedding takes place, like all of the guests they are shocked and utterly dumbfounded when Ross accidentally says Rachel's name instead of Emily's during the vows. In "The One After Ross Says 'Rachel'", Stephen angrily tells Ross that consequently Emily has gone into hiding after escaping out of the bathroom window and now feels humiliated, but this does not stop Andrea from telling Ross in front of him that she thinks he (Ross) is "delicious". Andrea's final words onscreen are, to Ross, "Call me." Stephen's final words onscreen, to Andrea in response to her flirting with Ross, are "You spend half your life in the bathroom-why don't you ever go out the bloody window?!"
Introduced in season 5[edit]
Mr. Zelner[edit]
Mr. Zelner (Steve Ireland): an executive at Polo Ralph Lauren, who interviews Rachel while at the same time finding her quirks hard to deal with in "The One with Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss".[e 90] After Rachel is promoted in Season 7, he becomes a recurring character. In "The One with Princess Consuela", he fires Rachel after overhearing her interview with a Gucci representative.[e 83] Ross tries to get Rachel her job back by bribing Zelner: Zelner has a son called Ross who likes dinosaurs. Ross says his name is "Ron", shocked to hear that Zelner's son is also named Ross. [e 30]
Kim[edit]
Kim (Joanna Gleason): a colleague of Rachel's at Polo Ralph Lauren. In "The One Where Rachel Smokes", Rachel thinks she is missing out on important decisions, as they are always made when Kim takes a smoking break. She tries to take up smoking so she can stay in the loop but is unsuccessful when Kim, initially bewildered by Rachel's wacky behavior throughout her attempts to join her while she is smoking, threatens to fire her if she keeps damaging her health.[e 91] Later, Kim thinks Rachel kissed Ralph Lauren in order to take her job, when it was really Phoebe who kissed "Kenny the copy guy". After unsuccessfully trying to deny the affair, Rachel pretends Ralph dumped her. Kim believes her when she sees what she thinks is a cold look from Ralph (appearing as himself) in the elevator.[e 92]
Introduced in season 6[edit]
Note: All characters who were introduced in this season did not re-appear in further seasons. Consequently, they are listed in #Only in season 6.
Introduced in season 7[edit]
Tag Jones[edit]
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Thomas "Tag" Jones (Eddie Cahill): Rachel's inexperienced but attractive new assistant at Polo Ralph Lauren. She hires him after being promoted, not because he is the best choice for the job but because she is smitten with him.[e 93] After he also becomes interested in her they try to keep their relationship a secret from her boss Zelner; otherwise Tag's employment would be a conflict of interest.[e 94] In "The One Where They All Turn Thirty" Rachel breaks up with Tag when she realizes that their six-year age difference makes him too young and immature for her to be dating if she intends to follow her marriage schedule.[e 50] He reappears in "The One with the Red Sweater" in season eight when Phoebe thinks he is the father of Rachel's unborn baby. He tells Rachel that he has matured a lot since their break-up and wants to resume their relationship, but backs off when he finds out she is pregnant by someone else. He later meets up with Ross—who is the real father and is wearing the same kind of red sweater.[e 95]
Charles Bing/Helena Handbasket[edit]
Charles Bing/Helena Handbasket (Kathleen Turner): Chandler's drag-queen father and Nora's ex-husband, regularly referred to and an unseen character in previous seasons. Determined to invite him to their wedding in "The One with Chandler's Dad", Monica drags Chandler to Charles' burlesque show in Las Vegas, where he is seen for the first time, performing under the name "Helena Handbasket". Chandler invites him to the wedding,[e 96] and he and Nora walk Chandler down the aisle in "The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding, Part 1".[e 97] He does not appear at the reception in "The One After 'I Do'",[e 46] though a deleted scene reveals he is upstairs crying after Joey accidentally ruined his dress.
Introduced in season 8[edit]
Emma[edit]
Emma Geller-Green (Cali Sheldon & Noelle Sheldon): Rachel and Ross' infant daughter. Though Ross had originally wanted to name his daughter "Isabella," Rachel wound up in tears when she decided that the name did not suit the baby and was dismayed by her other remaining choice, Delilah ("Oh great! Suddenly she sounds like a biblical whore.") Monica graciously suggests "Emma," the name she had chosen for her own future daughter when she was fourteen, but concedes that since "Nothing goes with 'Bing', so I'm screwed," Rachel can give the name to her own daughter.
Introduced in season 9[edit]
Mike Hannigan[edit]
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Michael "Mike" Hannigan (Paul Rudd): Phoebe's boyfriend and later husband: in "The One with the Pediatrician" (airdate October 10, 2002; Season 9, No. 3), Joey and Phoebe decide to go on a double date, promising to fix each other up with blind dates. However, Joey forgets about Phoebe's date, and wanting to prevent her from discovering this when she enquires about the name of the man he has fixed her up with, he pretends that someone called "Mike" will be her date. He then enters the coffee shop and desperately yells "Mike!" Mike Hannigan replies and is roped into the date, which does not go well as Mike accidentally makes it clear that he does not actually know Joey personally, and Joey tries to recover the situation, consequently upsetting Phoebe and turning off his own blind date Mary-Ellen in the process. Mike feels sorry for Phoebe as he watches her leave and when he spots her again in the coffee shop the next day, he speaks to her and explains that he allowed himself to be roped into the date "because I was told that I'd get a free dinner-which I didn't-and that I'd meet a pretty girl-which I did." A flattered Phoebe does not turn him down when he asks her out on a second date,[e 98] which is equally bad thanks to Ross, who accidentally upsets Phoebe before it can begin, causing her to spend rather a lot of the night crying on Mike's shoulder. Ross goes to Mike's house and tries to explain to him that he had accidentally upset Phoebe, which sets off a chain of ridiculous events that result in Mike ultimately deciding he still has feelings for Phoebe, and eventually, they decide to move in together;[e 99] Phoebe suggests that one day they could get married but he tells her that, after his messy divorce, he never wants to get married again, which results in them breaking up. Emotionally unable to be apart from each other, they reconcile in "The One with the Memorial Service" (airdate March 13, 2003; Season 9, No. 17). In "The One in Barbados, Part 1", Monica summons Mike to Barbados, where he proposes to Phoebe at the same time as David. She turns both of them down but tells David that Mike is the man she wants to be with. Subsequently, Mike has to break up with Precious (Anne Dudek), the girl he has been seeing since breaking up with Phoebe, but he gets Phoebe (who annoys Precious by calling her "Susie") to get Precious to dump him instead.[e 100] In "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits" (airdate October 30, 2003; Season 10, No. 5), he proposes to her, and they are married soon after by Joey.[e 101] When Phoebe briefly changes her name to "Princess Consuela Bananahammock",[e 83] he suggests changing his name to "Crap Bag" making her change it back. He makes a brief appearance in "The Last One", bringing over a "Welcome to the World, Baby Bing" banner to Monica and Chandler's and tells Phoebe that he wants to have a baby, too.
Theodore and Bitsy Hannigan[edit]
Theodore and Bitsy Hannigan (Gregory Itzin and Cristine Rose): Mike's rich, haughty parents. He introduces Phoebe to them,[e 69] and soon after they make it clear that they do not approve of Phoebe due to being both irritated and bewildered by her odd quirks, but Mike defies them and declares his love for her in front of his parents and their two "sinfully boring" friends (who are likewise bemused by the odd quirks of Phoebe). They later meet Joey, who confuses and bemuses them with his comments about how nice it is that "their little ones are growing up" (Phoebe had told him he was "like a dad" to her) and later attend the wedding in "The One with Phoebe's Wedding". His father makes his mother drink a lot of alcohol at the wedding so that she does not create a scene.
Amy Green[edit]
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Amy Green (Christina Applegate): one of Rachel's two sisters, who first appears in "The One with Rachel's Other Sister" (airdate November 21, 2002; Season 9, No. 8). She arrives at Monica and Chandler's for Thanksgiving dinner, where she is annoyed that she would not get custody of Emma if Rachel and Ross died. A boorish, hedonistic, brazen, dimwitted, amoral, materialistic and utterly unlikeable bully who could not care less about other people's feelings, she greatly irritates the friends with her cruelly honest opinions of them and selfish, self-absorbed attitude, though seems a little afraid of Monica, convinced that she's crazy (after witnessing Monica's bizarre rules when it comes to eating off of the china plates she and Chandler received as a wedding present). When Rachel and Amy later have a fight after the former feels the latter has insulted Emma, which results in them accidentally breaking one of Monica's plates (causing her to nearly pass out) Chandler (on the one and only occasion where one of Rachel's friends ever made a successful attempt to stand up to Amy) angrily tells them off as a father would do, and orders Amy to apologise for ruining Thanksgiving, which she does. Chandler then bemuses them both first by telling them that "that fight was totally arousing" and then accidentally breaking the rest of the plates.
Amy appears again in "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits", where she tells Rachel that she plans to marry her ex-boyfriend's father, who is rich. Rachel tries to teach her responsibility by letting her babysit Emma (who Amy calls 'Ella', insisting it's prettier), and tries to convince her to stop being so selfish and do something nice for another person. Eventually, Amy decides to take Rachel's advice and do something nice for Emma. Only trouble is, the utterly self-absorbed and self-centered Amy decides to get Emma's ears pierced.
Although Amy, like her father Leonard, was a deliberately unpleasant and unlikeable character, the comic relief she provided caused her to, again like her father Leonard, become memorable as a character that fans "loved to hate." In 2003, Applegate won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance in "The One with Rachel's Other Sister" and was nominated again for her appearance in "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits".
Charlie Wheeler[edit]
Charlie Wheeler (Aisha Tyler): an attractive paleontology professor (goes to Woodroffe school) whom Ross falls for in "The One with the Soap Opera Party" (airdate April 24, 2003; Season 9, No. 20). He plans to ask her out, but is too late when she gets together with Joey instead. Initially angry, he eventually accepts Joey and Charlie's relationship and helps Joey come up with intelligent places to take her on dates in "The One with the Fertility Test". At Ross's conference in "The One in Barbados", Charlie tells Joey that they have nothing in common and breaks up with him. She and Ross then get together. In "The One with Ross's Grant" (airdate November 6, 2003; Season 10, No. 6), she breaks up with Ross and gets back together with her old flame, Dr. Benjamin Hobart (Greg Kinnear).
The character of Charlie was created in part to counter criticism the Friends production staff had received for featuring too few characters played by ethnic minority actors. Aisha Tyler was only the second major supporting character to be portrayed by a black actress, following Gabrielle Union's appearance as Kristen Lang in "The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress" (airdate March 15, 2001; Season 7, No. 17).[41] The role was not specifically written for a black actor. Tyler told the St Petersburg Times, "I hope [people's] frustration over [the lack of diversity] is tempered by the fact that when they wrote this role, they didn't wimp out. They wrote her so smart and sexy and elevated, she wasn't just the black girl on Friends."[42]
Introduced in season 10[edit]
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Erica[edit]
Erica (Anna Faris): a young girl from Cincinnati who decides to let Monica and Chandler adopt her baby in "The One with the Birth Mother" (airdate January 8, 2004; Season 10, No. 9). She visits New York in "The One Where Joey Speaks French" and sees the tourist sites with Monica and Chandler. She goes into labor at the end of "The One with Rachel's Going Away Party" and gives birth to twins Erica and Jack in "The Last One."
Jack and Erica Bing[edit]
Jack and Erica Bing—the adopted son and daughter of Monica and Chandler, born in "The Last One." They were portrayed by Cristobal and Antonella. It is revealed that Monica and Chandler did not know they would be having twins until they were born. Chandler suggests giving one of them up but Monica refuses, saying, "We cannot split them up. They're our children and they're coming with us.".[e 2]
Missy Goldberg[edit]
Missy Goldberg (Ellen Pompeo): a woman from Ross' and Chandler's college, at which they both made a pact to not ask her out so it would not damage their friendship, introduced in "The One Where the Stripper Cries" (airdate February 5, 2004; Season 10, No. 11). At a reunion, Chandler gives Ross permission to break the pact, now that he is married, where it is revealed that Chandler and Missy made out numerous times during college after school hours in the school's science labs, which Ross calls his "turf".
Benjamin Hobart[edit]
Benjamin Hobart (Greg Kinnear): Nobel Prize–winning paleontologist and ex-boyfriend of Ross' girlfriend Charlie Wheeler, introduced in "The One with Ross's Grant". After seeing Charlie again for the first time in an apparently long while and meeting Ross for the first time (who bemuses him with ridiculous comments) he eventually confesses to Ross he is still in love with her and then unsuccessfully tries to persuade Ross to break up with her. When Ross refuses, Benjamin comes to resent him and displays this resentment by asking utterly ridiculous questions at the grant interview. He and Charlie eventually get back together, after Ross makes him confess his actions in front of her.
Amanda Buffamonteezi[edit]
Amanda Buffamonteezi (Jennifer Coolidge): an annoying lady who used to live in the building before moving to England.[e 102] She picks up a fake English accent and claims to have slept with Evel Knievel. Her inflated ego and utterly self-absorbed attitude cause Monica and Phoebe to find her insufferable, but since they do not want to hurt the nonetheless good-natured Amanda's feelings, they agree to meet up with her in the coffee shop after Chandler ruins their original plan not to take any of her phone calls by doing exactly that and informing her that they are in the house with him, and then bemuses her by informing her that he takes pedicures before handing the phone to Monica.
Roy[edit]
Roy (Danny DeVito): a stripper in "The One Where the Stripper Cries", who is hired for Phoebe's bachelorette party at the last minute after she expresses disappointment that the party is not "dirtier". Put under pressure to quickly hire a stripper by Phoebe (who had forgotten to ask them to hire one prior to when the party actually began) they look through the phone book and call the first stripper whose number they discover, asking him to quickly arrive at Monica's apartment where the party is taking place. When he turns up, the girls are surprised to see that he is at least 50 years old, but also delusional about his physical appearance, as he clearly has trouble accepting the fact that he has not aged gracefully and is not physically appealing to women anymore. When he sees that Phoebe is not enjoying his performance he gets annoyed, particularly when she claims while cringing that "this is how (she) looks when (she's) turned on." They have an argument over whether or not he should be paid for arriving after a rather difficult and rushed journey to the apartment on his part, and when she refuses to allow a sympathetic Rachel and Monica to pay him and also insults him, the sensitive stripper gets upset and cries as he is forced to accept the fact that he is no longer physically attractive, but stripping is all he knows. In her guilt, Phoebe comforts him and tells him that he should teach stripping instead. At her insistence, he then performs one last time for the party.
Mackenzie[edit]
Mackenzie (Dakota Fanning): the daughter of the current residents of the house Monica and Chandler buy. She winds up helping Joey deal with his anxieties about Chandler and Monica moving out of the city. As a bit of revenge for Joey's overanxious behavior, Monica and Chandler briefly pretend that Mackenzie is a ghost.[e 30]
Characters appearing in only one season[edit]
Each of the following characters of Friends, portrayed by a celebrity, may or may not be particularly significant to the story
Only in season 1[edit]
Joseph Tribbiani Sr. and Gloria Tribbiani[edit]
In "The One with the Boobies" (airdate January 19, 1995; Season 1, No. 13), Joey finds out that his father, Joey Sr. (Robert Costanzo), is having an affair with another woman, Ronni (Lee Garlington). Joey (the son) tries to set things right, but Gloria (Brenda Vaccaro), Joey's mother, who secretly knew about the affair all along, makes Joey change it back because her husband's been unusually nice to her since he started cheating on her.
Though Joey's parents do not appear on the show again, Joey Sr. later makes an appearance on the spin-off series Joey, making Costanzo the only actor, besides Matt LeBlanc, to reprise his role from Friends on the series
Drs. Michael Mitchell and Jeffrey Rosen[edit]
Drs. Michael Mitchell (George Clooney) and Jeffrey Rosen (Noah Wyle): Two doctors whom Rachel and Monica meet at a hospital, then go on a date with, with Monica and Rachel pretending to be each other for health insurance purposes—eventually causing things to go wild. Dr. Mitchell later saves the life of Ross's monkey, Marcel, who swallows alphabet tiles from a Scrabble game that nearly choke him to death.[e 31]
Jill Goodacre Connick[edit]
Jill Goodacre Connick (herself) gets trapped with Chandler in an ATM vestibule in "The One with the Blackout".[e 32] Chandler uses her cell phone to tell Joey and the others, engages in awkward conversion with her, and finally lets her play a "spin the phone pen over your head" game with him.
Alan[edit]
Alan (Geoffrey Lower) is Monica's boyfriend in "The One with the Thumb".[e 103] Everyone likes him more than Monica does. At the end of the episode Monica breaks up with him, and has the break-up talk with the other friends as if they broke up with him, too. The irony is that Alan is relieved when Monica breaks up with him as [he] 'just can't stand your friends'.
Lydia[edit]
Lydia (Leah Remini): a single mother-to-be whose childbirth Joey assists before going to see Carol give birth to Ben.[e 9] Remini had originally auditioned for the role of Monica.
Roger[edit]
Roger (Fisher Stevens): Phoebe's annoying boyfriend who analyzes each one of the friends and gets to their nerve. Appears in "The One With The Boobies."
Only in season 2[edit]
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Caroline Duffy[edit]
Caroline Duffy (Lea Thompson): a cartoonist. Reprising her role from Caroline in the City, she talks with Joey and Chandler—seeing them with Ben and consequently thinking them to be lovers—in "The One with the Baby on the Bus".[e 36]
Eddie Manoick[edit]
Eddie Manoick (Adam Goldberg): a temporary roommate of Chandler. After Joey, having landed the recurring role Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days of Our Lives, moves into his own apartment,[e 65] Chandler gets a new roommate.[e 104]Eddie and Chandler have nothing in common; Eddie hates Baywatch, foosball, and sports in general, and likes to steal mannequins from Macy's and dehydrate fruit. In "The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies",[e 105] he suspects Chandler of both having sex with his ex-girlfriend Tilly and killing his goldfish, so spites him by stealing his insoles. Later he forgets these events, but Chandler wants him out after learning that Eddie watches him sleep.[e 12] Eddie agrees to leave but later denies the conversation took place; he also claims that he and Chandler once took a trip to Las Vegas and genuinely believes it to have happened, confirming Chandler's suspicion that he is mentally ill. Bizarrely, Phoebe finds Eddie's weird behavior attractive. Chandler ultimately gets rid of Eddie by allowing Joey to move back in; they move Eddie's stuff out into the hall and pretend that Eddie moved out (and Joey moved back in) a year ago. The madman falls for their bluff and leaves. He is never seen again afterwards (although it was humorously noted in a guide to this particular season that Eddie would "probably come back with a gun").
Rob Donnan[edit]
Rob Donnan (Chris Isaak): Rob asks Phoebe to sing for the children at a library, but their parents are horrified by her morbidly honest lyrics. However, the kids like the songs and come to the café to listen to her.[e 18]
Zoo staffs[edit]
Zoo Administrator (Fred Willard) of the zoo Ross sent Marcel to, after Marcel started humping everything. When Marcel is kidnapped and forced into show business, he and the rest of the zoo staff decide to cover up the break-in, out of fear of bad publicity. When Ross visits the zoo with the intention of seeing Marcel, the administrator lies and informs Ross that Marcel has died. Ross later learns the truth about what happened to Marcel from the Zoo Janitor (Dan Castellaneta), a very unusual man with a strange fascination for the animals in the zoo.[e 18]
Susie Moss[edit]
Susie "Underpants" Moss (Julia Roberts): an old childhood friend of Chandler, who's working on the production of a movie,[e 18] and with whom Chandler has a colored history: when they were in elementary school, Chandler pulled up Susie's skirt when she was on stage, revealing her underwear to the entire school, and she never lived it down until she graduated high school. They arrange a date, Chandler unsuspecting that it is a plot to get revenge. After convincing him to wear her panties, Susie takes him out to dinner, undresses him in the men's room, and takes off with his clothes—leaving him in a bathroom stall wearing nothing but her panties. She is never seen again.
Jean-Claude Van Damme[edit]
Jean-Claude Van Damme (himself): an actor in the movie Susie's producing, over whom Rachel and Monica compete for attention. Monica has a crush on him but is too shy to ask him out; so Rachel attempts to on her behalf, but he says he'd rather go out with her (Rachel). Rachel asks Monica for permission, which she unhappily gives. After Rachel goes on the date with him it causes a fight between her and Monica that ends with Rachel telling Monica that she will not see him anymore, so that Monica can go out with him. When Monica goes on her date with him, she finds out he only agreed to go out (with Monica) because Rachel told him that Monica was "dying to have a threesome with him and Drew Barrymore". Monica immediately dumps him. When she gets home she and Rachel fight again, but this time end up apologizing to each other, agreeing they should not have let him come between them. He is last seen being greatly irritated – along with everyone else on the studio set – by Joey's stupidity while trying to act alongside him.[e 18]
Erika Ford[edit]
Erika Ford (Brooke Shields): a mentally ill stalker who thinks that Joey is actually Dr. Drake Ramoray, the character he plays on Days of Our Lives.[e 18] Despite this, Joey goes on a date with her. She dumps him when she suspects "Drake" is cheating on her with another woman (actually another character in the soap opera). He tries to explain that "It's a TV show!" and "I'm not Drake!", but she does not understand, so Ross tells her Joey's "Hans Ramoray", Drake's "evil twin"—and Joey tells her to go to Salem to find the "real" Drake Ramoray. She is never seen again afterwards.
Ryan[edit]
Ryan (Charlie Sheen) arrives in New York on leave from the Navy to see Phoebe, who has chicken pox at the time.[e 106] He is bewildered to see Phoebe covering her head with a scarf, trying to disguise the fact that she has chicken pox; eventually convincing her to admit this to him, he decides he cannot stand to be apart from her and consequently catches chicken pox from her and they both spend the rest of the time sick and trying to not scratch at the sores.
Duncan[edit]
Duncan (Steve Zahn) is a Canadian ice dancer that Phoebe married in order to allow him to get a green card.[e 38] While Phoebe believed him to be homosexual, he returned to ask Phoebe for a divorce because he has realized he is straight and has proposed to another woman. After witnessing and being bewildered by Rachel's antics with a pigeon (after she trapped it inside a saucepan), he admits to Phoebe the truth about his sexuality.
Only in season 3[edit]
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Chloe[edit]
Chloe (Angela Featherstone): "The girl from the copy place", with whom Ross drunkenly sleeps while mistakenly thinking his relationship with Rachel was over.[e 81] She is mentioned twice in "The One with the Jam". Ross quickly tries to usher her out of his apartment in "The One with the Morning After".
Pete Becker[edit]
Pete Becker (Jon Favreau): a computer software genius and multi-millionaire. Pete tips Monica $20,000 at the Moondance diner in "The One with the Hypnosis Tape", which she assumes is a joke. He asks her out on a date and takes her to Rome. They start seeing each other but initially break up because Monica is not attracted to him. They reconcile after Monica kisses him when he offers her a job in his restaurant (which she turns down), and then realizes that she is attracted to him after all. Monica thinks he is going to propose in "The One with Ross's Thing" (airdate May 1, 1997; Season 3, No. 23); instead, he tells her he wants to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion. He gets badly beaten by Tank Abbott,[e 87] and Monica ends it with him after he refuses to quit.
The character of Pete was conceived as "a Bill Gates billionaire genius scientist-type" to whom Monica was not attracted. The producers and casting director had difficulty finding an actor to play Pete as they wanted, "someone who was appealing enough that we liked him, so we could root for him, but on the other hand, wasn't so drop-dead male model gorgeous that we would go, 'What's your problem?' to Monica when she didn't fall for him."[43]
Kate Miller[edit]
Kate Miller (Dina Meyer): Joey's co-star in the play Boxing Day.[e 82] Joey falls for her, and she sleeps with him ... but she fails to see any attraction in him and is already dating the director. The play turns out to be dismal, and after the director dumps her she gets together with Joey in "The One with the Screamer". Joey is distraught when she leaves for a soap opera role in Los Angeles. In the episode "The One in Barbados (1)", Joey and Rachel, in hope of getting into the pharmaceutical convention, use fake IDs in which one of the names is "Kate Miller".
Marshall Townend[edit]
Marshall Townend (Reg Rogers): the overly dramatic, self-absorbed director of Boxing Day, who is dating Kate. He and everyone else involved in making the play (apart from Lauren) are said to have made fun of Joey after Kate recognized him as a man on TV who was too idiotic to be able to open up a milk carton. He later dumps Kate after she (and the play) gets a bad review.
Vince[edit]
He is a fire fighter whom Phoebe dates for some time before he finds out that Phoebe is also dating another guy.
Lauren[edit]
Lauren (Jennifer Milmore): Kate's understudy in Boxing Day. She is a big fan of Joey from his role as Dr. Drake Ramoray, and ends up sleeping with him. Joey dumps her after sleeping with Kate, and although she is initially upset (calling him "pig"), she later seems to be fine with him. She takes over the role of "Adrienne" in the play after Kate leaves for Los Angeles.
Tommy (The Screamer)[edit]
Tommy "the Screamer" (Ben Stiller): an aggressive, testosterone-fuelled bully who takes his pent-up rage out on anyone who irritates him in the slightest way by viciously screaming at them, in an episode fittingly titled "The One With The Screamer." He was briefly in a relationship with Rachel, doing well throughout this period of time to hide his aforementioned pent-up rage from her, with Ross being the only witness to it after seeing him screaming at an elderly couple who were accidentally in his and Ross' seats shortly after they first met at the theatre, and he later screams at Ross just because the latter almost spilt hot coffee on him. Frightening and intimidating people in this manner apparently amuses Tommy, who appears to be in a good mood after screaming at both Ross and the elderly couple. Ross tries to warn Rachel of what a bully Tommy is, but she does not believe him, assuming he's just making up the stories regarding Tommy's outbursts of anger in order to split them up so he can have Rachel all to himself (and considering that Tommy had learned of Ross' past with Rachel and witnessed how awkward they were around each other to his own bemusement, it is likely that he guessed after witnessing this that she would jump to this conclusion if Ross ever tried to warn her what a bully Tommy really was). However, his aggressive true colours are exposed to Rachel after she, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Ross witness him lose his temper after Joey and Chandler's pet baby chicken urinates in his hand and, unable to keep his anger in check, he screams at both it and their pet duck when its quacking irritates him further. Accepting to his own chagrin that she and the others are now afraid of him, he breaks up with her before leaving and is never seen again afterwards.
Isabella Rossellini[edit]
Isabella Rossellini (herself) got bumped off of Ross's "freebie list":[e 74] Ross and Rachel compile lists, each of 5 people (celebrities) one can have sex with, without incurring the other's wrath. Ross bumps Rossellini for Winona Ryder—because the latter is not "international" like Isabella—only to see Rossellini herself enter the coffee house. Rachel encourages Ross to pursue her as an "alternate", knowing he'll get shot down for his efforts after bemusing her with his quirks. She is never seen again afterwards.
Tomas and Tim[edit]
Tomas (Robin Williams) and Tim (Billy Crystal): two strangers at the coffee shop. Appearing at the beginning of "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion", they perform an otherwise pointless cameo/skit performance while sitting on the group's sofa at Central Perk. They are not mentioned in the credits. Tomas begins by asking the friends to move over to make room for the pair which they do. Then Tomas complains to Tim about how he thinks his wife is cheating on him with her gynaecologist. The friends stop trying to have their own conversation and eavesdrop. Eventually Tim reveals how he's sleeping with Tomas' wife causing Joey to rather crassly interrupt their discussion to ask if Tim is the gynaecologist Tomas was earlier referring to, only for an irritated Tim to tell him to mind his own business. Bursting into tears as he absorbs the fact that Tim has been sleeping with his wife, Tomas starts shouting at and insulting Tim, and ends their friendship before leaving the shop in a loud fury, followed by Tim, who gives the six shocked, bewildered friends one last embarrassed, apologetic look before he leaves.
Only in season 4[edit]
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Kathy[edit]
Kathy (Paget Brewster): Joey's girlfriend, introduced in "The One with Joey's New Girlfriend" (airdate October 30, 1997; Season 4, No. 5), with whom he has nothing in common apart from both being actors. A mutual attraction develops between Kathy and Chandler,[e 107] which manifests as a kiss;[e 108] after Joey finds out, Kathy decides to leave New York for Chicago, and declares her love to Chandler.[e 109] Initially outraged at Chandler's betrayal, Joey has a change of heart after Kathy's speech, and she and Chandler get together. Although Chandler was initially uncomfortable about the possibility of their relationship becoming sexual as he would be directly compared to Joey, Monica and Rachel were able to give Chandler some pointers. Sometime later in the season, Chandler goes to see Kathy in a play and discovers that it has extreme sexual content with her male co-star, Nick. Chandler starts to suspect that she is cheating on him and confronts her about it. Kathy is offended and gets into an argument with Chandler. She later sleeps with Nick[e 110] and Chandler dumps her (although there is evidence that she actually only slept with the co-star after Chandler argued with her).
When Paget Brewster arrived for her audition, she believed she was the "runty alternate" and did not have a chance of getting the part. Matthew Perry later told her that the producers knew she was right for the role when she called herself a "runt". She spent her first two weeks working on the show believing that she would be fired and the part recast with a better looking actress. Brewster did not want Kathy to be written out by cheating on Chandler. The female stars agreed with her and tried to persuade the producers to have Kathy tour in a play instead.[44]
Charlton Heston[edit]
Charlton Heston (himself): actor in a movie with Joey. Joey reeks from spending a day fishing without showering after, so he uses Heston's shower—only to be caught by Heston. Joey tries to explain that he "stinks"—which Heston infers to refer to his acting, not his smell—and Heston gives Joey an actor's pep talk before telling him that "no matter how badly you think you stink, you must never break into my dressing room and use my shower!"[e 111]
The Salesman[edit]
The Salesman (Penn Jillette) sells encyclopedias and attempts to sell one to Joey, finding his stupidity hard to deal with while negotiating with him. When Joey informs him that he only has $50, he offers Joey a choice of one volume; Joey buys the "V" volume, because it's the one he's reading at the time.[e 86]
Cheryl[edit]
Cheryl (Rebecca Romijn): a woman whom Ross dates, only to find that she keeps an incredibly filthy apartment overrun with rats and fleas, yet finds Ross's own apartment disgusting due to a "weird smell", which Ross suspects is soap. He attempts to form a relationship with her, but cannot after being covered with ink and meat whilst making out with her. After Ross ends it with Cheryl, Monica arrives at the apartment asking to clean it as she cannot sleep thinking about it, only for Cheryl to close the door in disgust.[e 107]
Joshua Burgin[edit]
Joshua Burgin (Tate Donovan): a recently divorced customer who regularly uses Rachel as a personal shopper at Bloomingdale's. They start dating but break up in "The One with All the Wedding Dresses" (airdate April 16, 1998; Season 4, No. 20) when he thinks the relationship is moving too fast. Joshua appeared at the same time that Jennifer Aniston and Tate Donovan were dating each other in real life.[45]
Chip Matthews[edit]
Chip Matthews (Dan Gauthier): A man who many years prior to the events of the show had attended the same high school as Rachel, Monica and Ross; although he was outwardly friendly and charismatic enough to become the most popular guy in the high school, he is depicted as being an inwardly selfish, careless and unpleasant person who emotionally hurts and plays immature pranks on other people. His first appearance is a very brief cameo in "The One with the Prom Video" (airdate February 1, 1996; Season 2, No. 14) as Rachel's senior prom date; in this episode he is played by an unknown, uncredited actor and his face is not seen on screen. He fully appears in the episode "The One with the Cat" (airdate October 2, 1997; Season 4, No. 2), where it is revealed that Monica always had a crush on Chip and was saddened by the fact that he would never date her for her obesity throughout her teenage years, even despite the fact that he abandoned and cheated on Rachel at the prom; apparently, she could not find him for two hours because he was having sex with a girl named Amy Welch. Monica and Chip meet again and, seeing that she has lost a lot of weight since he saw her last and is now a very attractive woman, Chip asks her out, much to her delight as she still has a crush on him. Rachel is upset when she learns that Monica intends to date the man who once cheated on her, but she eventually allows this to happen out of sympathy for her formerly obese friend. She does however react coldly when she answers the door to him when he arrives to pick up Monica, and asks him, "So Chip, how's Amy Welch?", to which he replies, "Amy Welch? Wow, I haven't seen her since..." He then becomes embarrassed and quickly changes the subject. Monica's dream is soon shattered when she realizes that not only is Chip as unpleasant as he was back in high school, he has not matured and done nothing to better himself since then. As it becomes clearer and clearer to her that mentally, he is still a teenager, she asks him if he still lives with his parents, to which he replies "Yeah, but I can stay out as late as I want." Finally seeing him for the immature loser he always was, Monica shows for the first time accurate insight into Chip when she later tells Rachel "You know how I always wanted to go out with Chip Matthews in high school? Well tonight, I actually did go out with Chip Matthews in high school." She finds happiness however, in the fact that she got to dump "Chip Matthews in high school."
Mr. Waltham[edit]
Mr. Waltham (Paxton Whitehead): Rachel's boss in season 4, who appears in "The One with Rachel's Crush" and "The One with Joey's Dirty Day". He is Emily Waltham's uncle. He asked Rachel to accompany his niece to the opera, just before Rachel gets a date with Joshua. Rachel convinces Ross to go in her place, which introduces them leading to their eventual relationship.
Sarah, Duchess of York[edit]
Sarah, Duchess of York (herself): Sarah makes a cameo appearance with Joey on his video camera, in "The One with Ross's Wedding".
Dr. Tim Burke[edit]
Dr. Tim Burke (Michael Vartan): Richard Burke's son. Monica, who has an ice chip in her eye while she is taking out the turkey from the freezer, meets him. He is invited to share the Thanksgiving dinner in "The One With Chandler In A Box". Eventually, after they kiss, they both realize that dating each other is a mistake, as Monica compares Tim to his father Richard, while Tim metaphorizes the kiss as if he were kissing his own mother.[e 109]
Only in season 5[edit]
Danny[edit]
Danny (né Daniel) (George Newbern): a man who has been on an around-the-world trip and returns in "The One with the Yeti".[e 112] Rachel and Monica encounter the bearded man in the basement of their building and think he is a Yeti. Rachel is attracted to him but plays hard-to-get by pretending not to be interested in a housewarming party he is throwing.[e 113] They eventually get together, but Rachel dumps him when she discovers he has a "special bond" with his sister.[e 114]
Katie[edit]
Katie (Soleil Moon Frye): An extremely (and constantly) energetic girl whom Joey dates in "The One with the Girl Who Hits Joey". As the episode name suggests, she's a woman whose play-punches are all-too-hard. A seemingly nice person nonetheless, she appears to like Joey a lot, apparently bemused but also highly amused by wacky antics from him such as "breadstick fangs" but she's so energetic that whenever she playfully punches him on the arm she accidentally hurts him, but seems to be oblivious to this. When Joey actually tells her, she thinks he is merely making good-natured fun of her small size. Joey eventually decides he wants to break up with her as a result, but worries about hard she will hit him if he in the process of doing so upsets her, but Rachel gives him an easy way out when she retaliates in anger after Katie playfully punches her and accidentally hurts her also by kicking Katie's ankle, and when Joey refuses to stick up for Katie upon witnessing this she, as he had hoped, breaks up with him and leaves. She is never seen again afterwards.[e 115]
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