If, for the past 15 years since Friends ended, you’ve been desperately hoping for a Friends movie or a Friends reunion of any kind, Jennifer Aniston has just well and truly thrown a spanner in the works.
By that, I mean she’s gone and confirmed one will literally never happen – despite acknowledging the fact fans of the show want it to more than anything – crushing the hopes and dreams of an entire generation in one fell swoop.
Isn’t that just kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic?
The 50-year-old actor, who played fashion icon Rachel Green in the hit sitcom, made the claims in an interview with Variety recently, revealing that while there was some interest in a film, producers wouldn’t allow it.
When asked why a movie never happened, she explained:
Our producers wouldn’t want it, wouldn’t let us. Look, it’s not been without our desire to, because our fans have wanted it so much.
Aniston was then asked whether her former cast members Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay) Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) would be open to reprising their roles, to which she responded: ‘It depends.’
The Murder Mystery actor went on to say:
I mean, we haven’t all sat in a room. But would we have loved to have done something together? Yeah. It would have been fun. We could have redesigned it for a couple episodes. But whatever. Maybe it’s better this way, but we’ll never know.
For fans to still be demanding a movie 15 years after the final episode was released is a sign of just how loved the show was, a fact which Aniston is well aware of.
Admitting she is surprised fans are still watching reruns of the show on Netflix, the 50-year-old described it as a ‘phenomenon’ that she is ‘amazed by’.
The actor said being able to witness an entire new generation of children adoring the show as much as they did back in the day when it was airing for the first time was ‘incredible’.
Unfortunately, Aniston’s comments are just a reiteration of those uttered by the show’s co-creator, Marta Kauffman, in previous years.
The writer and TV producer told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013 a reunion ‘could only disappoint’, saying ‘it’s not that time anymore’, before adding ‘the heart of the show would be gone’ if they rebooted it.
Basically, she was pulling no punches. Maybe they won’t be there for you after all.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).