Julia Roberts only agreed to do Friends if one condition was met
Topics: Celebrity, Friends, TV And Film, Matthew Perry
Rhiannon Ingle
Featured Image Credit: Marc Piasecki/WireImage
Topics: Celebrity, Friends, TV And Film, Matthew Perry
Over the years, Friends has delighted viewers with a whole bunch of Hollywood A-lister guest stars.
Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Sellick, Danny DeVito and Winona Ryder are just a handful of many, but it's clear that Julia Roberts' cameo in the second season two-parter, 'The One After the Superbowl' is a fan favourite.
Roberts' episode actually went on to be the most-watched episode in the history of Friends - so you know it was a good one!
For those who need their 90s sitcom trivia refreshed, Roberts played a character named Susie Moss, who reconnects with elementary school classmate Chandler Bing, played by the late Matthew Perry.
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At first, Susie appears to be keen on Chandler, but we soon find out that, even after all these years, she's still holding a grudge against him for lifting her skirt on stage in front of the school and subsequently being called 'Susie Underpants'.
Due to this, she seeks revenge, which results in a hilarious plot leaving Chandler in a restaurant wearing nothing but, you guessed it, underwear. To add even more salt to the wound, the underwear wasn't even his, as Susie had previously convinced him to don a pair of her own!
And while many TV lovers may be able to quote the episode off by heart, far fewer seem to know that Roberts only agreed to do Friends if one condition was met.
Perry and Roberts were actually an item in real life, with the star writing in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, opening up about her request when the part was offered to her.
His memoir, via The Times, recalled: "Julia had been offered the post-Super Bowl episode in season 2, and she would only do the show if she could be in my storyline. Let me say that again — she would only do the show if she could be in my storyline. (Was I having a good year or what?)
"But first, I had to woo her."
Perry continued in the book: "Her reply was that if I adequately explained quantum physics to her, she'd agree to be on the show. Wow. First of all, I'm in an exchange with the woman for whom lipstick was invented, and now I have to hit the books.
"The following day, I sent her a paper all about wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle and entanglement, and only some of it was metaphorical. Not only did Julia agree to do the show, but she also sent me a gift: bagels - lots and lots of bagels.
"Sure, why not? It was Julia f*cking Roberts."