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They're out of shape, not that funny, & they use too much hair gel...
so why is NBC paying Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer $ 72 million this year?
On the evening of February 11, 2002, NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker - having emerged from negotiations that awarded Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox Arquette, Jennifer Aniston, and Lisa Kudrow $ 1 million each per installment of the upcoming 24-episode season - sidled up to a podium and squealed: "We've never had better friends!" Three months later, Zucker confirmed to a rabid industry-only audience that this would indeed be Friends last gasp (and that the current season would end with a "cliff-hanger storyline, further whetting audience and advertiser appetite." And - theoretically, at least - justifying some $144 million in paychecks. It's hard to argue with those numbers. Last season the eight-year-old sitcom averaged 24.5 million viewers every week - its best ratings since 1997-1998. Friends finished the year as the No. 1 show on TV - the first time it went out on top. But why? We've always liked the girls, but LeBlanc, 35; Perry, 32; and Schwimmer, 35, well... that's debatable.
Never mind the enduring mystery of Friends incredible popularity. We wanted to find out how three ordinary guys with a taste for too much hair gel could be the best-said men on television. So we sat down at Matthew Perry's house in Beverly Hills and asked them the $72 million question: Are you worth it? To help crunch the numbers, we solicited the opinions of a few television titans. Friends, it seems owes everything to delusional fans, weight fluctuations, and Gilligan's Island.
Details: The contract you guys just signed made huge news. Do you care that everyone knows what you make?
Matt LeBlanc: A couple of weeks ago, some guy pulled up next to my car and said, sarcastically: "Hey, got a couple bucks on you?"
David Schwimmer: I wrestle with it a lot. What we make in a week is absurd compared to most of the world and I think it takes a lot of work to remind yourself of that. What's never published is how much the show makes for those who see much more profit than we do. Friends is one of the highest-grossing products ever for Warner Bros. With international rights, video, DVD, reruns, syndication... they are making hundreds of millions of dollars.
ML: There's been all this stuff in the press about what we deserve, and that's irrelevant. Anyone who can go to his boss and get a raise and doesn't is an idiot.
Matthew Perry: The cool thing is, we got it while wearing makeup. [Pauses] Actually, we thought we won the lottery when we got the show at whatever we were making then.
DS: I'm really moved hearing you say that. The money then meant more than this raise does now. Making $35,000 a week was huge.
ML: Wait - how much were you making? [Laughing]
DS: Um, I mean, twenty. Seriously, I'd rather have more of the Friends pool so I can choose where it should go - friends, family, charity. Big corporations wouldn't do the right thing.
ML: No shit.
Details: But guys think only about sex and money.
MP: Interestingly enough, I think about fucking my money.
Details: The initial reaction to you all has got to be 'fucking dicks'.
DS: My response to that early on was leave me the fuck alone. All I owe you is my work.
Details: So many people are jealous.
DS: Fuck 'em. I don't give a shit. It's not me up there. If you don't like me, don't watch. It's a free country.
ML: We're not tying anybody down saying, "Watch us and fucking like us," you know?
Details: Have you ever been at each other's throats?
ML: Sure
MP: When somebody gets pissed, you work on that right away or you'll mess up the whole thing.
Details: When you first met the women on the show, were you ever like, She's hot?
ML: Initially. But it all quickly became very brother-and-sister - for me at least.
MP: We knew [crossing that line] could be the only thing to screw up the best opportunity of our lives. But the girls seemed to disagree, so we were always telling them no. I remember Lisa and Jennifer showing up at my old place one night begging for it.
ML: Then they'd come to my house and get sloshed.
MP: I, however, waited until they were married.
Details: Would you guys all go out together at first?
MP: Until we realized we see each other every day.
ML: Now if you tried to get all of us together to watch the show, you wouldn't even get a call back.
MP: Yeah like, "Hey you guys wanna get together and... Hello?
Details: If you're ever lying around in bed watching TV and flip to a rerun of the show, do you watch?
DS: I watch only if I'm alone. Imagine saying to someone, "Aw, dude, this is Episode 32 when I..." you know? But it weirds me out when I catch All in the Family or Taxi and think, Oh, my God, my kids in twenty years are gonna go, "Dad, look at you!"
MP: Most of those other shows started when the people were, like, 40, you can't see much change in the characters. I was 24. So it's fascinating now. I was the first to actually watch the show when we started. And I was the first to get a kick out of being recognized.
Details: Is it still a kick?
DS: I remember being completely freaked to be outside walking and hear screams, and thinking, "What's going on?" then realizing, "Oh, that's about me." Or being grabbed, I didn't handle that well.
ML: I was in Australia promoting Lost in Space, and they had to put up guards on the hotel floor and were checking people's rooms. It wasn't just young girls. It's that creepy around the world.
Details: So what do you do, wear a hat and shades?
MP: You look even more famous in a hat and shades.
ML: I find myself more often in private places where I don't have to say, "Hi, yes, I'm willing to take a photo with your son."
MP: I stopped going out to shop when someone filmed what I had in my cart. But I think mostly it was an excuse not to do my own shit work.
DS: I was just in the drugstore the other day picking up toothpaste.
ML: When I do go out and no one notices me, I think, "Quit being such a baby - shut the fuck up."
Details: Guys think they want fame and celebrity.
ML: Give 'em two months.
MP: The interesting question is, would we turn it around if we could?
Details: Would you?
MP: You want a machine that can turn it on and off.
Details: Viewers want to interact with TV characters. You're in my bedroom, I've just had sex with my girlfriend, I flick on the TV, and it's you guys.
ML: Um... yeah... that makes me feel real good.
Details: In every group of friends there's the comparison - he's the Joey, the Chandler. I think it's fucked up that guys model their behavior after you all. You'd see Aniston on the cover of People with a new hairdo, and you'd know people would want that look - and it's the same thing with the guys.
ML: How do you think it feels when Jen's on the cover with a new hairdo and you got one that same day, but you didn't make the cover? [all laughing]
DS: Yeah, that was always hard for Matt.
Details: Have the characters become more similar to you guys, or have you become similar to them?
DS: Of the six, Ross is the responsible one. I'Ve always felt like that in my life. I was always the designated driver, basically.
Details: Do you feel like you've been pigeonholed?
DS: Absolutely.
ML: Yeah, it's like, "A war movie? We don't really want to see Joey doing that."
MP: But any price that has to be paid for you being recognized as the character you ar is worth it because you went to this whole new level of possibilities.
DS: When I think of Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, I think, Wow, I may have that kind of impact on someone out there.
Details: What about the press backlash?
ML: Everyone has a private side, and when it's invaded it sucks. Everyone goes through times they're not particularly proud of - even happy times.
DS: I can deal with the true parts of my life being public, what makes me crazy angry is when they print lies. Very early on in the series, I was in a serious relationship and was having some problems. It was printed that I had just got engaged to the girl. I've never forgiven the press.
MP: Yeah, ok, they said I was gay on page 5 and I was married to whoever, Cameron Diaz, on page 6, and none of that's true, but look how lucky I am. I'm getting paid all this money to do something I like. It's when people who don't have blessed lives get written about that I get pissed. At first I'd sue everybody, but it just makes a bigger story.
ML: I wanted to just be able to act, be the guy on the horse with the gun that gets the girl and live out that fantasy - not the famous guy wearing a hat in the supermarket. Back in the day, people fucked around, did drugs, but it was never caught on tape. There wasn't the fear that exists now.
Details: [to LeBlanc] I think I saw pictures of you and [fiancée] Melissa McKnight in some park.
MP: I don't remember taking that picture.
DS: You made like $2,500 off that. [Laughing]
MP: $2,800 'cause his mouth was open. [Laughing]
ML: I heard there's a picture of me and my dad riding bikes somewhere shot in Malibu or something. In London they had someone following each of us.
Details: Do any of you think you'll move out of LA once the show is over?
DS: Probably the first place would be Chicago.
ML: A lot of ass up there.
MP: Which is actually why they call it the Windy City. [All laughing]
Details: Will you guys still be friends when the show ends?
MP: We don't talk about that. [To LeBlanc] You know you and I are just going to be doing The Odd Couple.
ML: Yeah. [To Schwimmer] Did we tell you?
DS: No, I would never do another sitcom.
MP: Whatever you do, you're never gonna make everybody happy. At the end of the day, if you're proud of what you've done the day, which we are, you're cool. [Pauses] But you like us, don't you?
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