Characters Of FriendsThe series featured six main characters throughout its run, with many other characters recurring throughout all ten seasons.•Jennifer Aniston portrays Rachel Greene, a fashion enthusiast and Monica Geller's best friend from childhood. Rachel first moves in with Monica in season one after nearly marrying Barry Farber whom she realizes she does not love. Rachel and Ross Geller are later involved in anon-again-off-again relationship throughout the series. Rachel dates othermen during the series, such as an Italian neighbor, Paolo in season one, her client Joshua Bergin in season four, her assistant Tag in season seven, and Jo ey Tribbiani in season ten. Rachel’s first job is as a waitress at thecoffeehouse Central Perk, but she later becomes an assistant buyer atBloomingdale's in season three, and a buyer at Ralph Lauren in season five.Rachel and Ross have a daughter named Emma in "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part Two" at the end of season 8.•Courteney Cox portrays Monica Geller, the mother hen of the group and a chef,known for her perfectionist, bossy and competitive nature. Monica is often jokingly teased by the others for having been extremely overweight as a child, especially by her brother Ross. Monica works as a chef invarious restaurants throughout the show. Monica’s first serious relationship is with family friend Richard Burke who is 21 years her senior. The couple maintains a strong relationship until Richard expresses that he does notwant to have children much to Monica’s dismay. Monica and ChandlerBing later start a relationship after spending a night with each other in the season four finale, leading to their marriage in season seven.•Lisa Kudrow portrays Phoebe Buffay, an eccentric masseuse and self-taught musician. Phoebe lived in uptown New York with her motheruntil her mother killed herself and Phoebe took to the streets. Phoebe isditsy but street smart and writes and sings (badly) her own quirky songs,accompanying herself on the guitar. She has an "evil" identical twin namedUrsula who shares Phoebe’s quirkiness but unlike Phoebe seems to be cruel and uncaring. Phoebe is childlike and innocent in disposition. Phoebe tends to use her past misfortunes such as her mother’s suicide as sympathy ploys.Phoebe has three serious relationships. Gary (the cop) in season five, an on and off relationship with Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd) in seasons nine-ten and David (Hank Azaria) in season one, which ends when he moves toMinsk on a research grant. They reconcile whenever he returns but sheeventually rejects him for Mike in season nine. In the last season, shemarries Mike.•Matt LeBlanc portrays Joey Tribbiani, a struggling actor and food lover who becomes famous for his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. DrakeRamoray. Joey is a simple-minded womanizer with many short-termgirlfriends throughout the series. Despite his womanizing tendencies Joey is an innocent and caring character with good intentions.[Joey often uses the catchphrase pick up line "How you doin'?" in his attempts to win over women. Joey rooms with his best friend Chandler for years and later awhile with Rachel. He falls in love with Rachel in season eight. Rachelpolitely tells Joey that she does not share the same feelings. Theyeventually date briefly in season ten, but after realizing it will not work due to their friendship (and especially Rachel's complicated relationship with Ross), they return to being friends as before.•Matthew Perry portrays Chandler Bing, an executive in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration for a large multi-national corporation. Chandler quits his job and becomes a junior copywriter at an advertising agencyduring season nine. Chandler has a peculiar family history being the son of an erotic novelist mother, and a cross-dressing Las Vegas star father.Chandler is known for his sarcastic sense of humor and bad luck inrelationships. Chandler marries Monica in season seven, and they adopttwins at the end of the series. Before his relationship with Monica,Chandler dated Janice Hosenstein in season one and subsequently broke up with her many times. Matthew Perry has expressed his similarities to the character such as his need to break an awkward silence with a joke anddifficulties with women when first joining the show.[17]•David Schwimmer portrays Ross Geller, Monica Geller's older brother, a paleontologist working at the Museum of Natural History, and later aprofessor of paleontology at New York University. Ross is a sweet-natured man of good humor, although he is often clumsy and socially awkward.Ross is involved in an on-again-off-again relationship with Rachelthroughout the series. Ross has three failed marriages during the series:Rachel, Emily, and Carol, a lesbian who is also the mother of his son, Ben (Cole Sprouse). His failed love life is potentially due to his paranoia andjealousy in relationships and his divorces become a point of humor within the series. He and Rachel have a daughter by the end of season eight and they confess that they are still in love with each other in the final episode.CastingHaving worked with David Schwimmer in the past, the series creators wrote the character of Ross with him in mind, and he was the first actor cast. Cox wanted to play the role of Monica, but the producers had her in mind to play Rachel because of her "cheery, upbeat energy", which was not how they envisioned Monica; after Cox's audition, though, Kauffman agreed with Cox, and she got the role. When Matt LeBlanc auditioned for Joey, he put a "different spin" on the character. The writers did not originally intend for Joey to be dim, but found it to be a major source of comedy. LeBlanc also gave the character heart, which the writers did not realize Joey had. Although Crane and Kauffman did not want LeBlanc for the role at the time, they were told by the network to cast him. Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow were cast based on their auditions.More changes occurred to the series' storylines during the casting process. The writers found that they had to adjust the characters they had written to suit the actors, and the discovery process of the characters occurred throughout the first season. Kauffman acknowledged that Joey's character became "this whole new being", and that "it wasn't until we did the first Thanksgiving episode that we realized how much fun Monica's neuroses are."Courteney Cox was the best-known cast memberCourteney Cox was the most well-known of the six main actors. She was called in expecting to read for the part of Rachel. After reading for Monica instead,she won the role. Nancy McKeon also read for the part. Jennifer Aniston read for the part of Rachel after initially being considered for Monica. Her commitment as an actress on the TV series Muddling Through left her part in Friends in doubt; Muddling Through was not scheduled to be broadcast by CBS until mid-1994, after NBC's announcement of whether Friends would be greenlit for a series. If Muddling Through became a ratings success, the role of Rachel would have needed recasting, as the producer of Muddling Through would not allow Aniston to be released from her contract. A deal was eventually struck and, within three days of first auditioning, Aniston got the role. Crane and Kauffman wanted Joey to be "a guy's guy" who loves "women, sports, women, New York, women". The actors auditioned using the "grab a spoon" scene, and many arrived in character with "lots of chest showing". As the Joey character was not developed much in the script, Matt LeBlanc just used his experience playing "this Italian, kind of dim character" from Vinny and Bobby. He had at least eight auditions for the part, and in his final one read with Aniston and Cox.Chandler and Phoebe had originally been written as more secondary characters who were just there to provide humor around the other four; Matthew Perry described Chandler in the pilot script as "an observer of other people's lives". They had become part of the core group by the time casting concluded. Crane believed that the part of Chandler, described in the character breakdown as "a droll, dry guy", would be the easiest to cast, though it proved more difficult than he initially hoped. Perry had previously worked with Kauffman and Crane on an episode of Dream On, and requested an audition when he identified with the characterRoss&RachelRachel's most prominent relationship throughout the series is with Ross, Monica's older brother. When she moves to New York City in the pilot, Ross has been obsessed with her since his high school years. Although both Joey and Chandler know this, Rachel, Monica and Phoebe are oblivious until (slightly after Ross left to China on a work excursion) Chandler reveals Ross's feelings for Rachel. Ross tries several times to tell Rachel his feelings for her, but is derailed by her ex-fiance, Barry, and Paolo, an Italian man she meets during an electrical blackout, and Ross, unsure of himself, gives up on the idea of having a romantic relationship with Rachel.After Chandler's bombshell and a moment of self-discovery, Rachel realizes she has romantic feelings for Ross and decides (assisted by her friends) to approach him. Unfortunately, while in China, Ross became in a committed relationship with Julie, a very attractive American woman of Chinese descent. After her attempts to reveal her feelings for him fail, she decides that moving on is her only option. Her constant ramblings of Ross, while on eating dinner with another man, lead her to leave a drunken message on his answering machine, telling him her feelings. On hearing this, Ross and Rachel kiss and he ends his relationship with Julie to be with Rachel. Things are going very well until she finds a list of pros and cons he wrote in order to help him choose between her and Julie, and is deeply hurt and distressed by his assessment of her, and as a result ends their relationship. Ross begs for forgiveness but Rachel is still hurt and turns him down until Monica finds a box of high school mementos, including a video of Monica and Rachel getting ready for their high school prom. In the video, Rachel's date is late and Ross, wearing his father's tuxedo, is about to surprise her by offering to be her date. Just as he is about to ask, her date arrives. Ross watches, heartbroken, as Rachel leaves. Touched by this unknown romantic gesture, Rachel forgives him and they resume dating. They remain together for around a year before Ross's jealousy of her colleague, Mark, and his obsessive behavior leads Rachel to suggest taking "a break". Ross assumes this means they have ended their relationship. Depressed, he drinks large amounts of alcohol and succumbs to the advances of another woman, which results in him and the other woman having sexual intercourse. Rachel finds out, and after a bitter argument, she ends their relationship. From then on, the two have an on/off relationship.Rachel's feelings towards Ross blossom again when he announces his engagement to Emily, niece of Rachel's boss at Bloomingdale's. Ross and Emily decide to get married in London only one month after getting engaged and makes Rachel panic. She then proposes marriage to her then-boyfriend of four dates, Joshua, but he refuses and they break up soon after. Rachel claims she cannot attend the wedding because she has too much work but later tells Monica and Phoebe that watching them marry would be too painful and admits that she thought she and Ross would get back together again one day. However, she changed her mind and flew to London to tell Ross that she loved him but sees him and Emily kissing. She gave them her blessing instead but Ross accidentally says Rachel's name at the altar. Following the wedding, Emily stays in London and tells Ross she will only return if he promises never to seeRachel again. He agrees, initially, but then tells her that he can't and their marriage ends. When the gang visits Joey in Las Vegas, Ross and Rachel get drunk in their hotel room and marry in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Upon sobering up and realizing what happened, Rachel demands an annulment. Ross reluctantly agrees but at the last minute doesn't, but tells Rachel he did. Rachel is furious when she finds out but forgives him when she realizes his reasons for that decision, Ross simply didn't want to be known as the guy who had three divorces. The two are friends during the next season except for a brief kiss and a failed "bonus night" opportunity on the night of Monica and Chandler's engagement. However, they have a one night stand a few weeks before the wedding. During their wedding, Rachel is revealed to be pregnant and in the following days Ross is revealed to be the father. During the pregnancy, Rachel moves in with Ross so they could raise their child together. When Rachel goes into labor, Judy - Ross's mother - gives him her mother's engagement ring urging him to marry Rachel so their child would have a real family. Ross is hesitant but after watching the birth of Emma, he almost considers it. However, Rachel accepts a proposal from Joey mistakenly and causes Ross to have doubts over the possibility of a relationship. Raising Emma together seems to be a joy at first but Ross's continued jealousy over one of Rachel's co-workers puts a rift in their relationship and Rachel moves out. However, their friendship and desire to be good parents cause them to remain good friends.After Rachel is fired by Ralph Lauren, she gets a job in Paris, devastating Ross. At her going-away party, she says goodbye to everyone except Ross. This upsets him and after he confronts her about it, Rachel tells him that saying goodbye would upset her too much as their history would make moving too hard for her. To give her a reason to stay, he kisses her and they sleep together. The next morning, Ross thinks they are back together and is stunned when she says "It was the perfect way to say goodbye". After moping throughout the day thinking he's lost her, he chases her to the airport and admits he loves her and pleads for her to come back with him. Rachel still gets on the plane. When he returns home heartbroken, Ross finds a message on his answering machine and on playing it, he hears Rachel telling him she loves him too and what a mistake she's made and has to get off the plane but is interrupted by flight attendants when the line cuts off, leaving Ross wondering if she got off. Just then a voice speaks "I got off the plane". It's Rachel and Ross rushes to her. The two share a kiss, rekindling their romantic relationship. Later, Joey tells his family that "all his friends (in New York) are married", which implies that Ross and Rachel arenow married as well.All of the Friends season finales with a cliffhanger (Seasons 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9) involved Ross and Rachel.Emma Geller-GreenRoss and Rachel's daughter is born at the end of Season 8. After struggling to find a name for her, Rachel decides on Emma after Monica tells her that she wants to name her future daughter Emma, but allows Rachel to use the name. Rachel proved to be a protective mother. Emma is also used in humorous ways such as Phoebe and Rachel submitting her into a beauty pageant without Ross's permission, and her 1st birthday party results in all of the friends leaving, but returning in the end. At first, Emma lives with Rachel and Ross in his apartment, but moved in with Joey after Rachel and Ross have a disagreement. In the series finale, Ross and Rachel reconcile meaning Emma will live with both parents.... etcGeller familyMonica and Ross are usually quite affectionate, although there is a lot of sibling rivalry. In many episodes, Ross and Monica used an odd childhood gesture - knocking their fists together with their thumbs pointing outward (as an alternative to "the finger"). Monica and Ross are particularly competitive around their parents, Jack and Judy, as Monica feels her parents favour Ross.Like Ross, Monica is part Jewish. Ross introduces Ben to Hanukkah and talks about getting Monica a Hanukkah present several times. Monica also mentions her Bat Mitzvah. Chandler also reminds her of this when Erica. the twins' birth mother, mistakenly thinks she's a reverend. The Geller family also celebrates Christmas.Monica CleanlinessNeat Freak" Monica is comically obsessive about her apartment and loves cleaning (describing the dry cleaner as her Disneyland). This personality trait becomes exaggerated as the series progresses. Example of her maniac cleanliness are labelling cups, having sorted towels into eleven different catogories (four mentioned being "everyday use", "fancy", "guest", and "fancy guest"), and describing her new workplace as being "not just HealthDepartment clean, but Monica clean." She is also extremely territorial when it comes to cleaning, as shown when Chandler announced he'd hired a maid, and Monica snapped that she hoped he meant "mistress."CompetitivenessMonica is highly competitive, allegedly throwing a plate in a fit of rage during a game of Pictionary. Also, during a game of Mad Libs, Monica dismissed Phoebe's repetitive answers, claiming "rules help control the fun!", causing everyone else to leave.Monica also demonstrates athletic prowess, which, coupled with her competitive streak, makes her formidable, especially in foosball. During the group's trip to Barbados, Monica became obsessed with beating Phoebe's boyfriend, Mike, at table tennis, and the two became engaged in a marathon match, lasting hours. Monica eventually won. Moreover, she won an arm wrestle contest against Chandler and, in their youth, Monica broke Ross's nose when a game of touch football turned ugly in an attempt to win the "Geller Cup." The cup was thrown into a nearby lake. What Ross didn't know was that Monica jumped into the lake to retrieve it."Fat Monica"It is revealed early in the series that she had been overweight while growing up. Monica lost the weight when she was 18 after she overheard Chandler call her "fat" at Thanksgiving. The writers of the series often used flashbacks to show the overweight Monica (with Courteney Cox wearing a fat suit). In one episode, the group watch an old prom video and were surprised to see her weight and as well as Rachel's appearance before she had a nose job. In another episode where the group remember past Thanksgivings, one flashback reveals why Monica lost all the weight. She heard Chandler tell Ross he didn't want to be stuck in all night with his fat sister, prompting Monica to break down. She lost the weight by Thanksgiving of 1988, Rachel also lost the big nose. In almost every episode that features "Fat Monica", the episode ends with Monica dancing in a funny manner.In an alternate reality storyline during the show ("The One That Could Have Been"), Monica was overweight but still a professional chef and ended up withChandler, who was a freelance writer. As revealed in another episode, Monica's weight meant a junior high school member had to play with her on the see-saw rather than someone her own age, and her marching band outfit had to be custom made. Her fatness also explains Ross's hastened eating and Monica tells Rachel that Ross had a therapist due to a recurring bad dream about Monica eating him. Monica's weight is reported to have been the reason for their dog's knee surgery, after she tried to ride him and in a different episode, Ross reveals that she caused their parents' porch swing to break. In an episode where Monica, Chandler and Ross are revealing secrets, Ross tells that after being sent to bed without dinner one night, Monica ate the macaroni glued to her jewelry box.Another episode reveals that Monica attended fat camp as a child, and was found caught in the barbed wire after trying to catch and eat a squirrel, which she claimed she was trying to help out. Ross revealed in another episode that an eleven year old Monica weighed 200 pounds.Ross FriendsRoss often comes into conflict with his close friend, Phoebe Buffay. His rationality and Phoebe's eccentricity leads to conflict over the theories of evolution, gravity, and whether or not Phoebe's dead mother was reincarnated as a cat. It is also revealed that Phoebe mugged Ross during her homeless years (stealing a copy of the comic book Science Boy that Ross had created) when they were teenagers, although Phoebe is slightly cheered about the discovery because, lacking the longer-term connections of the others, she had always felt like an outsider to the group. The two are also roommates for a few weeks when a fire forces Phoebe to move into Chandler and Monica's apartment and Phoebe wants to give the newly-engaged couple some privacy. Also on a "flash back" episode, they are alone at the bar and start kissing, but the moment quickly passes when Ross keeps bumping his head.Ross's best friend since college is Chandler Bing. He is shown to have had some old memories such as a band with Chandler called Way/No Way and blamed him when he was caught smoking marijuana in college. Ross is also close friends with Joey Tribbiani and helps him with movie and stage auditions. He kisses Joey once in order to help him practice a role as a gay man only to find out that he had already done the audition and that he had not gotten therole. They also briefly try to cut Chandler out of their friendship group after he ignores them. Towards the end of the series, however, Ross and Joey are seento become closer friends, often hanging out together after Chandler gets married. At one point, Ross tells Rachel Green that Joey is his best friend, to which Rachel replies, "I thought Chandler was your best friend?" Ross begins explaining, "Well, Chandler's my oldest friend", but refuses to discuss it further.Three divorcesCarol Willick Over the course of the show, Ross was married three times, and divorced three times. This became a running gag within the series.Ross divorces his first wife of three years, Carol, when she reveals that she is a lesbian and is having an affair with Susan Bunch, whom she met at the gym. After the initial post-relationship complications had been overcome, however, they have been generally able to get along, and share custody of their son, Ben. Ross even achieves mutual respect with Susan after Phoebe makes them realise that they would all be parents to Carol and Ross' son. Ross later helps Carol and Susan reconcile when they have an argument about Carol's parents' disapproval of their marriage.In an alternative reality storyline shown in flashbacks during the show, Ross is still married to Carol but their sex life is stagnant. Not realizing that she is a lesbian, Ross suggests to Carol that they have a threesome, to spice things up,to which Carol instantly agrees. The other person in the threesome turns out to be Susan which ends as a twosome when the two women show no interest in Ross. Later on, Ross is forced to accept that his wife is a lesbian and ends up consoling Rachel after she discovers that her husband, Barry, is having an affair as well with the neighborhood dog walker.Emily Waltham During the fourth season, Ross meets and falls in love with Emily Waltham (Helen Baxendale), a British woman visiting New York. They quickly develop a rapport, despite the knowledge that they will only be together for the two weeks that Emily is in New York, and soon settle into a relationship. They continue for another month, only seeing each other whenever Emily is able to travel to New York, but the logistics of living on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean make having a relationship difficult untilRoss spontaneously asks Emily to move in with him. Emily laughs this off as being too soon in the relationship, saying it'd be different if it was way down the line and they were getting married. Ross takes the idea seriously and proposes, and Emily accepts. They make arrangements to get married in London, and invite Rachel out of courtesy. Rachel decides not to go to London as it would be too awkward for her, but realises that she still has feelings for Ross and takes a flight at the last minute, planning to tell Ross that she still loves him. She decides not to when she sees how happy Ross is with Emily. But during the ceremony, Ross says her name instead of Emily's. This drives a wedge between him and Emily, and although she is initially willing to work on the relationship, asking him to cut Rachel out of his life for good. She eventually realises that she doesn't trust Ross to keep to this and they are divorced shortly thereafter."Regina Phalange"Phoebe frequently uses the alter ego Regina Phalange (Phalanges are bones in the fingers). The first reference to Regina Phalange is during season 5, when Phoebe is trying to contact Mrs. Waltham in England after Ross and Emily's wedding. She pretends to be Dr. Regina Phalange, who is Ross' brain doctor, claiming that names are interchangeable in his mind. When the friends go to Vegas, Phoebe introduces herself to the blackjack dealer as Regina Phalange. When Phoebe, Rachel, and Melissa go out to lunch (The One With Rachel's Big Kiss), when asked by Melissa if she was in a sorority, she replies 'Yeah. Thigh Mega Tampon.' Melissa replies 'What?' and Phoebe says 'Yeah, we were really huge too, until they had to shut us down when Regina Phalange died of alcohol poisoning.' She also used her fake name to show Chandler and Monica that people sometimes lie about their names and introduces herself to them as Regina Phalange. Phoebe uses the name when helping Chandler with his interviewing skills in season 8. In the season 10 episode "The One Where Joey Speaks French", Phoebe attempts to spare Joey from humiliation by introducing herself as "Regine Phalange" and stating that Joey is speaking an obscure regional dialect from her "hometown" of "Estée Lauder". Her attempts to convince the casting director fail and she eventually admits that Joey is her younger brother who is "un peu retardé" (a little retarded), and requesting that the casting director humour Joey's French-speaking abilities. The last referenceis in the series finale when Phoebe successfully stalls Rachel's plane to Paris by saying there is a problem with the "left phalange", causing everyone on the plane to evacuate, including Rachel. A woman on the plane asks a flight attendant, "You fixed the phalange?" to which he replied, "Yes, the phalange is fixed. In fact, we put a load of extra phalanges on board just in case."Phoebe’s marriageIn Season 9, Joey introduces Phoebe to Mike Hannigan by randomly selecting him for a date with Phoebe. Phoebe and Mike begin a long relationship, which temporarily ends after Phoebe learns that Mike, having already been through one failed marriage, never wants to marry again. Mike then learns that Phoebe's first boyfriend, David, is planning to propose to her; he changes his mind about marriage and proposes to Phoebe before David can. Phoebe rejects the proposal because she only wanted to know that marriage was a possibility; she and Mike become a couple again. They become officially engaged in "The One Where Rachel's Sister Baby-Sits". In "The One with Phoebe's Wedding" during the final season, they are married in the street outside Central Perk, with Monica as matron of honor, Rachel as a bridesmaid, Joey officiating, Chandler giving Phoebe away, and Ross holding Mike's childhood dog as a groomsman.When she changes her name after the wedding, Phoebe learns she can change it to anything. She briefly becomes "Princess Consuela Bananahammock" but requests that the friends call her "Valerie". To show her how ridiculous it sounds, Mike suggests changing his name to "Crap Bag". Phoebe relents but wants to keep the name "Bananahammock" until learning that it is slang for a Speedo. She changes her name to Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan.Despite her first marriage to Duncan Sullivan, it was once indicated that Phoebe was previously married in Las Vegas at some point in the past. She indicates her belief that people married in Las Vegas are only married within the city limits, and is surprised when Monica informs her such a union is legal all over the world. After a moment of mild distress, she shrugs off the revelation.。
