The renowned director of the sitcom Friends once labeled a particular guest star as ‘not funny,’ and that actor has now shared her own experiences of being on the beloved series.
Director James Burrows did not hold back when he candidly named British actor Helen Baxendale as his least favorite guest to work with. Baxendale portrayed Emily Waltham, the whirlwind girlfriend and eventual wife of Ross in the show’s fourth season.
Burrows noted that it was challenging for the main cast to engage with Baxendale, describing her as ‘nice, but not particularly funny.’
Despite these remarks about her 14-episode stint, Baxendale has reflected positively on her time in Friends, describing it as ‘almost like a dream.’
In a 2012 interview with the Mirror, she expressed: “I am very proud and delighted to have been in such an amazingly successful and international show. It’s always a talking point and it was a very clever set up – even now young people especially seem to love it. But it doesn’t feel like part of my life at all now. I look upon it as a strange surreal little blip in my life almost like a dream.”
However, being part of such a major sitcom did have its downsides. Baxendale admitted to finding it difficult to handle the fame that came with the show.
She mentioned to the Daily Mail: “You couldn’t walk down the street to buy a pint of milk. In fact, you couldn’t go anywhere. It was impossible to mix with the crowd and do what ordinary people do.”
Sadly, her family also faced unwanted attention from the paparazzi, and Baxendale ultimately decided that such a lifestyle wasn’t for her.
She explained: “I saw it as a gilded prison. It was something I wasn’t prepared for.”
Eventually, her character Emily was written out of the series, with the storyline culminating in Ross saying the wrong name at the altar, coinciding with Baxendale’s real-life pregnancy.
She reflected: “I didn’t want to live in America, when all my circumstances were leading me back to Britain,” a decision she stands by wholeheartedly.
“To me there are many aspects of being ambitious. Yes, there is your career, but there are also many other ambitions. There is this perception that TV is glamorous and it is the pinnacle of your existence — I don’t think it is.”