- Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman did a retrospective interview with Rolling Stone, and said once again that there will be no revival of the show.
- Kauffman cited the changing times and the fact that a revival could only disappoint, a sentiment echoed by other cast members including Jennifer Aniston.
- Did you know that Ross Gellar was almost played by someone else? Fifteen years on, the show still has some surprises left for us.
Despite the show Friends wrapping up in 2004, making it 15 years old and me truly old, it's still insanely popular and has hit a resurgence among young millennial viewers. New and old fans love the show so much that when there was a whisper that the series might leave Netflix (and it still might, after 2019!) the Internet lost its mind. Well, now we have renewed clarity on whether the show will ever grace our TVs/laptops/iPhones in the future. And it's a big fat nope.
Marta Kauffman, who's the co-creator, explained in an interview with Rolling Stone. "One, the show is about a time in your life when your friends are your family. It's not that time anymore. All we'd be doing is putting those six actors back together, but the heart of the show would be gone. Two, I don't know what good it does us. The show is doing just fine, people love it. [A reunion] could only disappoint. 'The One Where Everyone's Disappointed.'"
Kauffman also said that the way people watch TV is fundamentally different now, and it's lost the magic of coming together to watch. "Back when I was in college, it was Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda. And part of the affection I have for those shows is that we would all crowd into a room and watch as a community. Now, people lie in bed and watch on their computers."
Jennifer Aniston has herself said that a reunion in any form wouldn't work, partially because the show took place in a time that no longer exists. **weeps** "There was something about a time where our faces weren't stuffed into cell phones. We weren't checking Facebooks and Instagrams. We were in a room together, in a coffee shop together. We were talking, having conversations. We have lost that," she told E!.
But she also gets why people watch it all the time. "Not only was it a gift for us, but it's something that people have been able to carry with them. It's comfort food and it makes them feel better when they're feeling down when they want to distract themselves, because it is always on!"
Kauffman also reminisced about the two times she KNEW they had something special: One when someone in a Friends jacket stopped to ask her about the show, and "[o]ur very first rehearsal when we had all six of them onstage for the first time and they read the scene in the coffeehouse. I got chills up and down my spine and thought, 'This is special. There is something about these six, this script for them, that's special.'"
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