Marcel’s Hollywood career continues! The white-headed capuchin monkey Ross owned on the NBC sitcom Friends — who, in real life, is a female named Katie — will appear in the new FX drama Y.
FX CEO John Landgraf, the former VP of Primetime Series at NBC, actually recognized Katie when he reviewed footage from the new show. “I recognize Jennifer Aniston, I recognize Courteney Cox and I recognize that monkey!” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
“There’s nothing like a really experienced actor who knows how to hit their marks!” Landgraf added. “[She’s] still as good!”
Y is based on the science-fiction graphic novel series Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. “Y traverses a post-apocalyptic world in which a cataclysmic event has decimated every male save for one lone human,” the logline teases. “The new world order of women will explore gender, race, class and survival.”
Dunkirk actor Barry Keoghan plays Yorick Brown, that last male human — starring opposite Amber Tamblyn, Diane Lane and Lashana Lynch — and Katie plays his pet monkey, Ampersand, the only other male on the planet.
On Friends, Katie first appeared in the episode “The One With the Monkey,” as Ross’s pet, Marcel. Ross eventually found Marcel a new home at the San Diego Zoo, and then Marcel became a movie star, appearing alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in the (fictional) Outbreak 2: The Virus Takes Manhattan in “The One After the Superbowl.”
The capuchin — who is now in her mid- to late 20s, according to her trainer — has also appeared in episodes of 30 Rock and Sam & Cat.
