Jess Battison
For its fans, any episode of Friends is a guaranteed laugh – or at least a guaranteed smile. So it’s hard to imagine it being painfully unfunny.
And yet a director admitted he struggled to work with one star because she simply ‘wasn’t funny’.
As any viewer of the show knows, Friends had its fair share of cameos over its 10 seasons. From Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, to Christina Applegate and Reese Witherspoon, there’s plenty of popular ones no matter what their role was.
However, when it comes to director James Burrows - who worked on a number of episodes of the TV hit - it was Helen Baxendale who was one of the hardest.
The now-54-year-old Brit played one of Ross Geller’s many, many fiancées as she appeared as Emily Waltham in 14 episodes.
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Their romance was of course pretty short lived due to Ross going and saying ex-girlfriend Rachel’s name at the alter during their London wedding, resulting in a swift divorce.
Gosh, it’s cringy to even think about, right?
Baxendale is perhaps best known for this role as well as playing Rachel Bradley in the British comedy drama, Cold Feet.
She only had a short sting on the show because she and husband David L. Williams were expecting their first child together. And Burrows said it was pretty difficult for the other actors on set to ‘bounce off her’.
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In his 2022 memoir, Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, and More, he recalled the experience.
The director looked back on the episode ‘The One with All the Rugby’ from 1998 as he said of Baxendale: “She was nice but not particularly funny. Schwimmer had no one to bounce off. It was like clapping with one hand.”
Ouch.
And it didn’t stop there, as he continued: “In sitcoms and any type of romantic comedy, the funny is just as important as the chemistry. We discovered that any new girlfriend for Ross needed to be as funny as Rachel.
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“Often, you can't recast, because of tight shooting deadlines or other logistical considerations. You don't cast anyone to be a straw man, unless it's for one episode."
Burrows went on to explain how important it is to have ‘someone who gets laughs’.
“Sometimes you start an arc and it ain't working out, so you have to get rid of that person. If it's a day player, it's a quick goodbye,” he said
"The reverse is also true. If there's chemistry, the writers go to work to figure out some way of keeping the actor."
But hey, plenty of fans love the character of Emily, so it clearly wasn’t such a failure!