Friends Director Revealed This A-List Actor's Guest Role Should Have Been Banned From The Show

Highlights

Shooting Friends was unlike anything else, with the pressure and aura surrounding the show magnified by a live audience.
Some top actors struggled on the show, like Sean Penn, who director Kevin Bright regretted casting due to his discomfort.
Not all guest stars had a positive experience – Olivia Williams found the atmosphere on set to be “harrowing” and “alarming.”

Appearing in a guest role on Friends was a huge deal. Millions watched every week, and a single scene could have launched a career. However, the likes of Matt LeBlanc revealed even the most-established actors would struggle on the show. Shooting Friends was unlike anything else, especially with the aura surrounding the show, mixed with a live audience.

Let’s recap who was regarded as the worst, and which actors fans felt like didn’t live up to the hype on Friends. The show also featured guest-stars that complained about the show, and those that weren’t exactly pleasant to deal with in their guest roles. Let’s unveil all of that and more.

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Fans Agree That Friends Crossed The Line By Casting This Young Actress In A Scene With David Schwimmer

In a scene alongside David Schwimmer, fans felt sorry for Rachel Snow’s casting on Friends.

Kevin S. Bright Had Regrets Over Sean Penn’s Guest-Role On Friends

Throughout the ten seasons of Friends, fans got to see some of the top actors in the world appear on the show. Christina Applegate, Reese Witherspoon, and Brad Pitt were among the elite guest-stars that received top honors for their respective cameos. However, not all A-list actors lived up, and according to Friends director Kevin S. Bright, Sean Penn turned out to be one of the very worst. So bad, that Bright regretted his casting on the show. Bright specifically called him “a deer in the headlights.”

The Friends director recalled, “I think the least successful one was Sean Penn on the show. Just the style of the production wasn’t what he was used to, doing a show like that, so there was a little deer in the headlight affect.”

Bright added that Friends was in a very ideal position as the top tier actors were coming to them for guest-roles on the show.

“It worked out that it was easy because we didn’t have to come up for parts to suit the cast; we had actors coming to us saying they wanted to be on the show so there were really parts written for them knowing they wanted to do the show,’ Kevin added.

Conan O'Brien On Set Of Lisa Kudrow's Cult Classic Film Michelle and Romy's High School Reunion

Conan O’Brien Completely Broke After Lisa Kudrow Revealed What She Genuinely Hated Most About Friends

Lisa Kudrow was completely honest with Conan O’Brien, detailing the worst part about shooting Friends.

Fans on Reddit also chimed in on their thoughts on the worst cameo during Friends. Unlike Bright’s thoughts, there were other names that were far worse, and in fact, fans note that the cast of Friends was actually excited to appear alongside Penn. One fan wrote, “David was so excited to have Sean there as he thinks he’s an amazing actor. And David’s a potato.”

Jean-Claude Van Damme revealed he is ashamed of his cameo on Friends.

As for some of the other worst guest stars, Ben Stiller and Jean-Claude Van Damme were the names that kept coming up among fans.

Olivia Williams Recently Called Her Experience On Friends “Harrowing”

On the flip side, certain guest-stars weren’t fond of their experience on Friends. For the most part, even the most established actors admitted to being nervous given the chemistry of the cast, and the fact that it was shot in front of a live audience. Olivia Williams instead said that atmosphere behind the scenes was tough. She said Friends was “harrowing” and “alarming.”

“I was taken to the studio in a shared car with a wonderful actress whose character, I think, was called ‘Old Woman’. At one point, a producer – who shall remain nameless – just yelled at her: ‘You’re not funny!’ And she didn’t come back the next day. So that was alarming.”

Olivia Williams smiling on a red carpet — via Instar

Williams added that she was taken aback by also having to change her appearance for the role. “Oh, and ‘Friends’ was a brand, and you had to fit the brand. You go into hair and make-up and you’re told, ‘There’s a look here, this is what we do.’ And that involved, essentially, plucking off all of your eyebrows. Literally [I was begging], ‘Please don’t take my eyebrows off, I might need them in another job!’ But yes, that’s the sense in which it was harrowing.”

Olivia Williams appeared as Felicity on Friends in the 1998 episode, The One with Ross’s Wedding: Part 2

Lisa Kudrow’s Physical Appearance Was All Fans Could Talk About Despite Her Dark Friends Story On Jimmy Kimmel Live

Fans had a lot to say about Lisa Kudrow’s physical appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live compared to her other Friends co-stars.

Not an ideal experience for the actress, who also admits she’d have more roles in Hollywood if she wasn’t such an open book.

Lisa Kudrow And Jennifer Aniston Revealed Two Guest-Stars Crossed The Line On-Set

Both Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston did not name any names, but they spoke about problematic behavior behind the scenes on Friends. Kudrow discussed one alarming incident of an actor questioning her appearance. “I rehearsed without makeup most of the week, and then on show night I’m in makeup and then I was told ‘oh wow, now you’re f——-‘.” She added, “That’s bad behavior, I’d say.” Kudrow didn’t name anyone in particular, but fans have questioned whether or not it was Charlie Sheen.

Lisa Kudrow also took exception to the live audience during the taping of Friends, stating that their reactions extended too many shoots.

Jennifer Aniston also called out Fisher Stevens for his involvement early on. Aniston felt as though Stevens thought he was above the show at the time. Credit to Stevens for apologizing to the cast of Friends. “At that moment in my career, I had never done a sitcom before,” he says. “I had never heard of Friends because it was just the beginning of the show and I didn’t watch TV at the time much.”

Fisher concluded, “I was kind of an a——, I have to admit. ‘What do you mean? So I have to relearn lines that you’ve written that are worse than what you’d originally written?’ Yeah, I was a d—. I’ve rarely seen any of those people on
Friends
again, but I’m sure if you asked them about me, they would go, ‘What a New York snob.'”

Seeing what Friends would become, Stevens certainly had regrets.