The real reunion! While fans were thrilled to see Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc together again on HBO Max’s Friends: The Reunion, it was the actors themselves who were even more excited.
“It was a sucker punch in the heart in a way,” Aniston, 52, said on SiriusXM’s Gayle King in the House after the special, which was delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic, debuted on May 27. “It was for all of us, I think. Even Courteney we got tears out of!”
The Just Go With It star noted that everyone got sentimental upon seeing the original props on set.
“We romanticized it, but you also have to remember we haven’t been there [since the series finale],” she shared. “That time was a very specific time — when we were saying goodbye to something that we didn’t want to, we cared deeply about, but we knew it was the time to say goodbye. Our lives were ahead of us. We had our future ahead of us. … It almost felt like time had stopped and we time traveled. And there’s good in that, and then there’s heartbreak in that.”
Kudrow, 57, also reflected on the reunion, during which she performed Phoebe’s famous hit, “Smelly Cat” with Lady Gaga.
“I was really nervous when I first heard that, and then I prepared. I realized that I had to learn ‘Smelly Cat’ again,” the Comeback alum, 57, said on the Friday, June 4, episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I tuned my guitar and then realized I don’t know the chords. But I Googled it. All the chords were there. So, thank you world for posting the chords. … I learned [the song] and then my throat closed. I was so panicked that I couldn’t get anything out. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but it worked out.”
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Following the filming, some of the cast shared behind-the-scenes photos that fans didn’t get to see. Take a look at the gallery below:
