Random Behind the Scenes Drama from the Set of Friends (16 items)

(#11) Jennifer Aniston almost didn’t return for the final season.
By the time the show ended, Aniston was arguably the most famous of the six friends. In a 2004 interview, she admitted she had hesitations about returning to play Rachel for the final season because she wasn’t sure about “how much Rachel” she still had in her. Thankfully, she agreed to stay on. Ultimately, the episode order was cut from 24 to 18 to accommodate her schedule.
(#4) Matthew Perry struggled with addiction.
Perry’s addiction problems are no longer a secret but they sure made his life difficult while on the set of Friends. He once confessed that his substance abuse problem caused him to forget filming three seasons of the show. While he said never used on set, he admitted to going into work hungover on several occasions.
(#14) Courteney Cox struggled with fertility issues in real life.
Just like her character, Courteney Cox struggled with fertility issues during the show’s run and suffered several miscarriages. “I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel was giving birth. It was like that same time," Cox once said. "Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny."
(#9) Salary negotiations didn’t always go smoothly.
The Friends cast famously negotiated their salaries together, eventually earning $1 million per episode. They were the first cast in the history of television to score such a huge number. It was David Schwimmer’s idea for them to band together and form a mini-union. However, network execs weren’t always happy with these negotiations, and Marta Kauffman, one of the creators, even went so far as to call the salaries of the six friends “ridiculous.”
(#7) NBC expected loads of hate mail after the lesbian wedding.
There’s no doubt that Friends was an important show for showcasing equality on screen in various forms. However, NBC expected to get a lot of hate mail after the 1996 episode with the lesbian wedding aired. Surprisingly, the network only received four complaints - all via the telephone.
(#15) The writers worked really long hours.

“Our hours were crazy. There were so many mornings when we were all finishing the rewrites. We’d get notes from the studio and the network,” David Crane recalls in the Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV book. Kauffman added that they paid special attention to how the audience reacted.

“But it was our notes that killed us. We knew we had to listen to the audience. Their silence tells you a lot. Laughing in good and bad ways. Laughing at setups instead of jokes,” she said.