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Friends Fans Booed Poor Julie for Keeping Ross and Rachel Apart

Lauren Tom, who played Ross’s season two girlfriend, admits that she “wasn’t prepared for the amount of venom I was about to receive in a live audience.”

By Laura Bradley

June 19, 2019

Friends fans were rabid about Ross and Rachel finally getting together—which meant that Ross’s season two girlfriend, Julie, was doomed from the start. From the moment Ross walked off a plane with his former grad school classmate, Rachel named Julie public enemy No. 1—even though Julie herself was one of the nicest characters the show had ever seen. Apparently, though, fans’ support for the SS Ross and Rachel might have gone a little too far.

Speaking with the Today show for the sitcom’s upcoming 25th anniversary, actress Lauren Tom revealed that during tapings, fans would actively heckle her.

“I wasn’t prepared for the amount of venom I was about to receive in a live audience where they actually booed my character,” she said. “And, of course, I was trying very hard not to get my feelings hurt. So I had to get used to that. But I did understand intellectually that, you know, the audience was meant to be rooting for Rachel. Even I was rooting for Rachel, on some level, ’cause I was a fan of the show.”

The exceptional thing about Julie was her maturity; even as Rachel gave her the cold shoulder, Julie tried to work things out between them, candidly confronting Rachel about her behavior and asking what was wrong. “I think that the writers meant to have her that way, so that the joke would play more that Rachel thinks she’s a bitch no matter what she does or says,” Tom said.

Even so, Tom is still convinced Ross should have chosen Julie in the end. “We would’ve been so happy with our cats,” she said. “But I think Julie probably ended up with Russ”—i.e. the Ross doppelgänger Rachel briefly dates, who’s also played by David Schwimmer—“so I don’t think she did too bad.”

Today spoke with several performers who guest starred on the series during its 10-season run—actors including Christina Applegate, who played Rachel’s self-centered sister Amy, Cole Sprouse, who played Ross’s son, Ben, and Kristin Davis, who played one of Joey’s prospective love interests, Erin. Multiple interviewees noted the cast’s genuine friendship and playfulness on set. Tom remembered the cast walking through the set arm-in-arm, while Jane Sibbett, who played Ross’s ex Carol, recalled seeing Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, and Lisa Kudrow splashing around in a puddle in the rain. “I get choked up when I think about it,” Sibbett said. “I said, like, if they could capture that, that’s lightning in a bottle. If they could capture that kind of freedom and that friendship, this show is golden.”

Still, the cast’s friendly nature and easy camaraderie didn’t stop some of the show’s bit performers from getting nervous. Davis, for instance, said she actually lost sleep ahead of her appearance on Friends—even though she had been starring on Sex and the City for two years by the time she showed up on the Warner lot. In part, Davis said, it was the live audience that got her nervous. But the other factor, she said, was being “in this world that has been created that is so alive and so specific, and you’re trying to make sure you’re fitting yourself in there properly. And I remember, like, ‘Will I set that joke up okay? Will Matt [LeBlanc] be happy? Will I just go blank?’ Things go through your head when you’re in those situations that are heightened like that. Obviously, it was the highest of the high at that point.”