Friendsis a television sitcom you may have heard of. Airing on NBC from 1994-2004, the show about six friends who hang out in annoyingly expensive New York apartments and sometimes a coffee shop became a cultural phenomenon. It is, to this day, a television comfort food mainstay, so much so thatstreaming services fight over itand an eagerly anticipatedreunion specialis being planned.
One question, though: What’s the cast been up to since the show ended? How haveJennifer Aniston,Courteney Cox,Lisa Kudrow,Matt LeBlanc,Matthew Perry, andDavid Schwimmerbeen cultivating their creativity, playing against and with their established TV types, and proving they’re more than the six friends who’ll be there for you?
Here now, for all you die-hardFriendsfans, are the six best performances post-Friendsfrom each main member of the cast, performances that all breathe new life into the careers of actors we’ve fallen in love with for some time. And for more goodies you may watch on HBO Max, check outthe best shows on the service.
Jennifer Aniston - The Morning Show
In some ways,The Morning Showcan neverquiteescape its shadow as a ripped-from-the-headlines prestige soap with higher-than-average production values and cast pedigree. Famous actors likeReese Witherspoon,SteveCarell,Billy Crudup, andGugu Mbatha-Rawchew into stylized, showy speeches with a sense of “gunning for that Emmy” gravitas that can overshadow or even trivialize the important societal issues being explored. Whether you like the show or not depends on your patience for this kind of storytelling (for me? Surprisingly high!). But one nearly objectively high point isJennifer Aniston. She manages to anchor (pun mildly intended) the show’s sometimes scattered focus with a complex, richly interior, multi-layered performance. Even when she’s being asked to communicate wild ideas (i.e. meeting a recently fired sexual predator in his home in the middle of the night to express her insecurities and doubts), Aniston sells it with believability, never being tempted by the siren song of “performative, awards-baiting acting.” OnFriends, Rachel often felt vulnerable, her emotions on her sleeve, her status trending towards low. It’s such a revelation to watch her play a higher status character trying desperately to keep her ever-burgeoning vulnerability at bay, until it can’t help but explode in invigorating, truth-telling ways.
Courteney Cox - Cougar Town
Don’t judgeCougar Townby its title — because the show itself willbeat you to the punch.Bill Lawrence’s follow-up toScrubsmay sound like a sex-crazed sitcom about older women going after young men — and I guess it is? kind of? technically but not really? — but it’s so much more than a knee-jerk, on-paper reaction. It’s sublimely silly, surreal, and self-aware, packed with jokes that come from a place of love and invention, eager to make big, puppy dog swings like crossing over withCommunityjust for the thrill of it. Its ensemble cast is stacked – special shout-out toBusyPhilipps' exceptionally high-strung work — and the centralized performance ofCourteney Coxworks as a perfect guiding force. Cox is a phenomenal physical, slapstick comedian (think Monica with a turkey on her head shimmying), one who knows that the sillier the bit you’re performing, the more committed you have to be to grounding it in reality.Cougar Towngives her ample room to show off these skills, while also giving her like 900 perfect one-liners per episode, all of which she knocks out of the park. Cox’sCougar Town, title and all, is a delightful glass of rosé of a show, and Cox is the perfect sommelier.
Lisa Kudrow - The Comeback
Wow, wow, wow, what a performance.The Comebackis a transformative show forLisa Kudrow, one that allows her the space to play notes of cringe-inducing cluelessness, bitter realization, and heartbreaking pathos — sometimes within the same scene. Shot in a sparse, warts-and-all, mockumentary style (lessModern Family,moreThis Is Spinal Tap), the show follows Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish, an actor who had huge success on a sitcom in the past and has since fallen on hard-ish times. She’s now filming a reality show on her ostensible “comeback,” which in one season involves a horrid, sex-crazed multicam sitcom, and in the second season involves… well, I don’t necessarily want to spoil the meta-trickeries involved in the complex second season, but it is worth your time and thensome. When we talk about the most influential TV comedy series of the 2000s, it is a downright shame we don’t putThe Comebackon the same level as anArrested DevelopmentorThe Office. Kudrow’s performance is essential work, rendered with an unflinching empathy, whether Valerie’s behavior deserves it or not. Don’t call it a comeback; Kudrow’s been here for years.
Matt LeBlanc - Episodes
The pilot ofEpisodesends on such a viciousMatt LeBlancdunk, that I am surprised and delighted that LeBlanc even appeared to be in the series. After English sitcom writersStephen ManganandTamsin Greighave their original classically trained British actor dashed for the American version of their show, the clueless American studio pitches them a new one: Matt LeBlanc. And then the episode ends on… silence. Dumbfounded silence, both the characters and us as audience members understanding implicitly how silly, how foolhardy, how simplystupidsuch a suggestion is. LeBlanc is more than willing to have his reputation skewered and burned for the sake of his art, taking his journey as “Matt LeBlanc” to not just sharply funny places, but to emotion-driven, ruthless places, too. LeBlanc continues to be the king of the killer one-liner delivery, particularly when his raw emotion and knowledge of his true self butts up against the unbending “truth” of the universe around him (case in point: His delivery of"I’dwatchWhores"). But beyond his time-tested, ultra-professional understanding of comedy performance, LeBlanc also stretches as an actor capable of much more. A fearless, courageous, shameless in the best way performance.
Matthew Perry - Go On
One thing I find admirable aboutMatthew Perry’s post-Friendsperformances (many of which he produced and/or wrote) is his need to dig beneath the surface of his image and find the prickly, uncomfortably true psychological machinations whirring. Works likeNumb,Birds of America, and even the treacly made-for-TVThe Ron Clark Storyfind Perry in appealingly low-key, Even as these scripts backslide into formula and screenwriting deus-ex-machinas, Perry’s commitment to these roles and their interior authenticities is underrated and inspiring (especially inNumb, which despite some writing issues, yields a comfortably uncomfortable, mental health destigmatizing performance from Perry).
But in one beautiful season of television, which was unjustly cancelled after 22 episodes, the material met Perry’s commitment at his level.Go Onwas an uncommonly bittersweet NBC sitcom made in the spiritual shadow of its bittersweet cousinCommunity. Perry plays a sports radio host reeling from the death of his wife, who finds himself in a support group full of other grieving folks with idiosyncrasies that feel silly and fleet on the surface, but part ways to reveal a litany of deepening traumas themselves. The show is warm, silly, earnest, and provides wonderfully applicable lessons that step one toe into being sentimental without feeling unearned. And Perry gets so much to play with, his central character feeling like a culmination of all of his interests.
David Schwimmer - Duane Hopwood
Nuclear Take: If you’re going to watch one New England-set character study about an alcoholic father struggling to regain control and cathartically work through his traumas, watchDuane Hopwood, notManchester by the Sea. The latter is overlong, oppressively morose to an almost absurd degree, and stars a noted sexual predator. But the former runs a tight under-ninety, supplants its authentic pains with an endearingly melancholy sense of humor, and stars national treasureDavid Schwimmer. It’s an easy switch! And Schwimmer plays the title role easily, despite Duane Hopwood’s many complicated pains involving his children, his disease, his divorce withJaneane Garofalo, his mounting frustrations managing a middle casino in Atlantic City, and most amusingly, his newfound experiment managing the career of aspiring comedianJudah Friedlander. Playing a more passive, reactive sad sack whose goals are as simple as “just getting by” is always a tough position to put an actor in (see: many of the other indie films people in theFriendscast have made), but Schwimmer walks the line of “sympathetic” and “annoying” with textbook agility and acumen. This is the film that should’ve made Schwimmer a go to for indie dramedy auteurs likeGreta Gerwig, the film that should’ve earned him awards attention instead of Creepy Magoo. Would ya watchDuane Hopwoodalready?
