‘Friends’: Jennifer Aniston’s 1 Co-Star Was Told To ‘Say Whatever You Want’ During Live Filming With Her
Friends remains one of the most popular television shows of all time, although it stopped airing new episodes over 15 years ago. It was filmed in front of a live studio audience, but it took six hours to film one 22-minute episode because of the many retakes and rewrites of the script. Somehow, Jennifer Aniston‘s one co-star was told he could say whatever he wanted during filming, although everyone else had set lines.
Throughout the 10 seasons of ‘Friends’ Rachel Green had 10 different boyfriends
In between her on-again, off-again relationship with Ross Gellar (David Schwimmer), Rachel went through many different dating experiences. However, only one of those men was told by producers to “say whatever you want,” instead of given specific lines.
It wasn’t “The One With Russ,” since the new guy Rachel briefly dates in season two, episode 10, is basically the same person as Ross, down to his looks and mannerisms. Schwimmer even played him, but the actor chose to use an alias in the credits to keep fans wondering.
It also wasn’t the time she dated Joey (Matt LeBlanc). The actor did not come up with the iconic line, “How you doin?” However, one of Rachel’s boyfriends could make up his own lines.
Rachel’s boyfriend Paolo revealed he could ‘say whatever’ he wanted
Cosimo Fusco, the Italian actor who played Paolo, was a young guy from Italy thrown into a sitcom. Paolo dated Rachel briefly before he hit on Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) during a massage. During his time on the show, the writers told him he could improvise.
“I was a little bit skeptical because my English then wasn’t as good as it is now, let’s face it,” Fusco told Today in the segment marking Friends 25th anniversary. “But I was told not to speak any English: ‘Just say whatever you want in Italian.'”
He admitted that the producers did not tell him what to say when he was speaking Italian. Instead, he used improvisation.
“When I’m standing by the window with Jennifer, I say, ‘Look at the moon, look at the star’ and I just say that and it stayed in everyone’s mind,” he added.
Fusco disagreed with the writers on Paolo’s character on ‘Friends’
In a recent interview, the actor admitted that he had a problem with how the writers portrayed Paolo.
“There was one scene where I was getting a massage, and I had to be this greasy guy who was touching Phoebe’s ass,” Fusco said in an interview, according to Daily Mail. “I had a problem with how it portrayed me as if guys from Italy are like that. What they wanted me to do was quite disrespectful. But I remember we were able to find a compromise, so I felt comfortable.”
Although Fusco could say anything he wanted in his native language, he stuck to things that went with the scene. The actor thought that viewers watching who knew Italian shouldn’t be confused by random phrases that didn’t fit.
