Former FRIENDS Writer Says the Actors Rarely Had Anything Positive to Say About the Scripts

TV writer Patty Lin has worked on a ton of popular and beloved series over the years, including Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives and Breaking Bad, but the most popular of its time had to be Friends. The series ran for ten seasons between 1994 and 2004, and it brought in the biggest audiences and biggest paychecks for its stars of any show in history. It’s still widely watched, in syndication and via streaming, but not everyone involved with the show has the best memories of working on it.

The stars of the show are still famously close, but Lin recently opened up about the tough time she had while making the series.

Lin wrote in her memoir, End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood (via Time):

“The novelty of seeing Big Stars up close wore off fast, along with my zeal about breakfast. The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out, and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them.”

She continued:

“They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn’t like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we’d rewrite it. Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon. David [Crane] and Marta [Kauffman] never said, ‘This joke is funny. The actor just needs to sell it.'”

Lin goes on to write that the actors voiced their opinions “vociferously” when they didn’t like something on the script, adding:

“They rarely had anything positive to say, and when they brought up problems, they didn’t suggest feasible solutions. Seeing themselves as guardians of their characters, they often argued that they would never do or say such-and-such. That was occasionally helpful, but overall, these sessions had a dire, aggressive quality that lacked all the levity you’d expect from the making of a sitcom.”

She went on to say that during her time on Friends, she suffered from “imposter syndrome.”

“But imposter syndrome, I later learned, is a common experience for racial minorities who work in fields where they lack representation. As the only Asian writer in many rooms, I felt so alone, buckling under the pressure to represent my entire race and prove that I deserved a seat at the table—or a spot on that stage.”

Lin says that Judd Apatow, the producer of Freaks and Geeks, warned her about taking the job on Friends as it was already a “well oiled machine” and she wouldn’t learn anything adding, “I didn’t learn that much, except that I never wanted to work on a sitcom again. But the choice had been clear at the time. And, for better or worse, Friends would remain my most recognizable credit.”

via: Deadline