Jennifer Aniston‘s Rachel Green had an unforgettable friend group on TV, but even the Central Perk crew may not have had bonds as strong as Jen’s real-life relationship along with her Friends costars.
Because the star celebrates her 56th birthday on Tuesday, February 11, it’s perfect timing to look back on the true relationships behind one of the successful sitcoms in TV history. It’s been 21 years since Friends finished its iconic run, but Aniston’s relationships along with her costars are still as fascinating for fans of the NBC show as her love life. From milestone celebrations to private tragedies, the solid of Friends are seemingly still an element of Aniston’s life in a really meaningful way.
Keep scrolling to look back at what all the fundamental Friends solid members have said about Aniston on and off screen through the years.
Courteney Cox
Cox and Aniston were one in all TV’s funniest comedy duos in Friends and it’s clear that Monica Geller and Rachel Green’s interplay was rooted within the deep affection that the 2 actresses had for each other away from the cameras.
The pair send each other thoughtful birthday messages on social media yearly, like when Cox wrote to Aniston on Instagram in 2020: “Irrespective of how hard you may try… there’s just one Jennifer Aniston. Glad birthday my dear friend.”
In February 2024, Cox shared a vintage Friends clip from the season two episode “The One Where Heckles Dies,” where their TV alter egos get right into a huge argument over Monica breaking Rachel’s seashell lamp. A downtrodden Rachel has some sad news for Chandler, telling him: “Hey, Chandler. Monica just broke my seashell lamp.”
“Undecided why that is one in all my favorite clips… I assume it’s because no one else on the earth could make this line sound so cute,” Cox wrote via Instagram. “Glad Birthday my sweet Jenny Louise. Also don’t know why I call her that…but I sure do love you.”
The solid of Friends has reminisced in regards to the show — and their favorite episodes — multiple times for the reason that series’ end in 2004. “Here’s what I like, is after I watch an episode, I’ll normally remember where we broke in the course of the scene,” Jennifer Aniston told costar Lisa Kudrow during a joint Variety interview in June […]
In turn, Aniston thanked Cox for being “fiercely loyal to the tip” in her own birthday tribute to her Friends costar in June 2024.
Aniston wrote via Instagram: “Celebrating this powerful, magical, mystical, interesting, interested, ferociously talented girl today!!! My sweet CC @courteneycoxofficial… she’s funny like no other, STUNNING on the in and out. Independent in probably the most gorgeous way, cares for everybody even when she doesn’t know you.”
Lisa Kudrow
Rachel’s friendship with the heartwarmingly kooky Phoebe Buffay didn’t all the time seem as deep and meaningful as her bond with Monica, but, very like Aniston and Kudrow off-camera, there’s never any doubt how much they look after one another.
Kudrow candidly admitted during a December 2024 interview on the “Armchair Expert” podcast that the Friends solid “really did get along” in the course of the making of the show.
The Phoebe actress acknowledged that the solid’s “six-way relationship took some work and [they] did it.” Kudrow also mentioned learning from Cox and Aniston’s approach to disagreements.
“If someone said something or did something, it didn’t get too big, since it was, ‘Can I refer to you?’” Kudrow recalled, before adding: “I needed to learn to [say], ‘Can I refer to you about something?’ because I never knew that was allowed but I saw it modeled rather well by Courteney and Jennifer and Matt. Respectful communication.”
When Kudrow turned 60 in July 2023, Aniston called her former Friends castmate “one in all [her] favorite people on the planet.”
“She’s been my friend and my family for nearly 30 incredible years. I cherish you…I like you, my sweet Floosh,” Aniston wrote via Instagram. “One of the talented comedians/actors I’ve had the nice honor to work with for all these glorious years and more to come back.”
David Schwimmer
Aniston and Schwimmer have admitted to “crushing hard on one another” during Friends‘ original run, but, unlike their characters Rachel and Ross, they never actually dated.
Schwimmer revealed in the course of the filming of Friends: The Reunion in 2021 that there have been moments early within the sitcom’s run after they would “cuddle on the couch” between scenes.
During a Live With Kelly and Mark appearance in March 2023, Aniston said that it was “quite enjoyable” to film Rachel and Ross’ kisses with Schwimmer. She confessed to even once broaching the topic of a real-life romance along with her costar.
“I remember saying one time to David, ‘It’s gonna be such a bummer if the primary time you and I actually kiss goes to be on national television,’” she said in Friends: The Reunion. “Sure enough, the primary time we kissed was in that coffee shop. We just channeled all of our adoration and love for one another into Ross and Rachel.”
In a 2003 TV special commemorating the tip of Friends, Schwimmer pointed to his bond with Aniston as one of the vital in his life.
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and more costars had their fair proportion of high-profile romances for the reason that sitcom catapulted their careers. In 1995, one yr after the NBC series premiered, Aniston actress began dating Tate Donovan. The pair called it quits three years later, and while they were working through their split, they got a romantic […]
“Jen, she amazes me. Also, [a] very generous, warm, warm person. Just all the time puts the opposite person first and I believe it’s a present,” he said.
In that very same 2003 special, Aniston acknowledged that the 2 had “lots of history,” along with praising how helpful Schwimmer was in the course of the filming process.
“[He’s] really smart and helps me determine things that I don’t understand. … I could be really honest with David and speak my mind, and I actually appreciate you letting me do this,” Aniston told him.
Matt LeBlanc
While Rachel and Joey had an unexpected but lovely romance within the later seasons of Friends, LeBlanc was quoted as saying within the officially-licensed 2004 book Friends…Til’ the End that he actually had “a little bit crush” on Aniston in the course of the show’s early seasons.
“I believe the entire world did, too, so what are you going to do?” he declared on the time.
In more moderen years, LeBlanc has suggested Aniston was more like his “little sister,” which was a unique dynamic than he had with Cox and Kudrow.
“Courteney [Cox] and Lisa [Kudrow] are like my big sisters, but Jen’s like my little sister,” he told People in 2015. “Matthew’s like my little brother, and David’s [Schwimmer] like my big brother. That’s the way it all broke down. And it’s literally identical to chronological.”
Aniston offered a novel birthday wish for LeBlanc when he turned 57 in July 2024, writing via Instagram: “I hope you’re doing a lot nothing today. LOVE YOU.”
Her joke referenced LeBlanc’s 2017 appearance on Conan where the actor expressed a desire to retire from acting.
“I would love to retire sooner than later, because I believe I would love to don’t a f— thing. That’s what I would love to do. Just nothing. Nothing! Zero,” LeBlanc quipped.
Matthew Perry
Very like Schwimmer and LeBlanc, Perry confessed to having a crush on Aniston during their Friends heyday.
“Eventually, my crush dissipated,” he told Sirius XM Radio in 2022. “At first, she’d walked in… and I’d just go to my dressing room and [swoon]. ‘I’ll never have the option to be along with her.’ But how will you not have a crush on Jennifer Aniston?”
The late Perry singled out Aniston in an October 2022 interview with Diane Sawyer for continuing to ascertain in with him throughout his struggle with addiction.
“She was the one which reached out probably the most. You already know, I’m really grateful to her for that,” he said.
In that very same interview, Perry remembered that Aniston tried reaching out to him in a dark period during Friends‘ production.
Warner Bros. Television/Getty Images The late Matthew Perry will all the time be remembered by the Friends solid. “We’re all so utterly devastated by the lack of Matthew. We were greater than just solid mates. We’re a family,” the show’s stars, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, told Us Weekly […]
“Imagine how scary a moment that was,” Perry conceded, later declaring: “I must have been the toast of the town, but I used to be in a dark room meeting with nothing but drug dealers and completely alone.”
When Perry died tragically at age 54 from the acute effects of ketamine use in October 2023, Aniston wrote via Instagram that she’d felt “an insane wave of emotions that [she’d] never experienced before.”
“All of us experience loss in some unspecified time in the future in our lives,” she began. “Lack of life or loss of affection. With the ability to really SIT on this grief means that you can feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply. He was such an element of our DNA. We were all the time the 6 of us. This was a selected family that without end modified the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.”
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