‘Friends’ writer trashes life on the show: ‘Sex talk was pervasive’
The one where the writer tells all.
Former screenwriter and producer Patty Lin, whose credits include “Freaks and Geeks,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Breaking Bad,” says her time on “Friends” was “no dream job” — she claims the star-studded cast seemed “unhappy” with the sitcom that made them household names.
In Lin’s upcoming memoir, “End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood,” she reports that she started as a “Friends” writer in July 2000.
Having premiered in 1994, “Friends” was in its seventh season at the time, with cast members Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, and Matt LeBlanc already big-time celebrities.
“But the novelty of seeing Big Stars up close wore off fast, along with my zeal about breakfast,” Lin wrote in an excerpt published by Time magazine. “The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out, and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them.”
Lin, who is in her 50s, accused the cast of purposely sabotaging the script if they didn’t find it humorous.
“They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn’t like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we’d rewrite it,” she alleged.
“Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon. [Co-creators] David [Crane] and Marta [Kauffman] never said, ‘This joke is funny. The actor just needs to sell it.'”
Lin continued, “Once the first rewrite was finished, we’d have a run-through on the set, where the actors would rehearse and work out blocking with the director. Then everyone would sit around Monica and Chandler’s apartment and discuss the script.”
“This was the actors’ first opportunity to voice their opinions, which they did vociferously,” she explained.
“They rarely had anything positive to say, and when they brought up problems, they didn’t suggest feasible solutions. Seeing themselves as guardians of their characters, they often argued that they would never do or say such and such. That was occasionally helpful, but overall, these sessions had a dire, aggressive quality that lacked all the levity you’d expect from the making of a sitcom.”
The Post has contacted reps for Lin, the six main cast members of “Friends,” as well as Crane and Kauffman for comment.
Lin recalled that the show’s writing staff “was cliquey more so than at any other show I would work on.”
“They reminded me of the preppy rich kids in my high school who shopped at Abercrombie & Fitch and drove brand-new convertibles,” she quipped.
Lin said the cheeky writers’ room conversations never bothered her, even as the “sex talk was pervasive.”
“Harmless, maybe. But necessary? That’s hard to justify,” she reflects in her book.
“I remember exactly one time that details about our sex lives were used on the show, in ‘The One with Rachel’s Book,’ where Joey finds a book of erotica that Rachel uses to get off. (Several of us had such books in our nightstand drawers),” she noted.
“But mostly we talked about sex just to amuse ourselves. What kind of birth control did we use? Did we have sex on our periods? Did we ever fall asleep during sex? When I answered no to the latter, one of the writers quipped, ‘That’s because you’re not married.'”
“End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood” is due out Aug. 29.
