Friends writer reveals storyline that cast were "very much against"
"It felt very incestuous to them."
When it comes to couple ships on Friends, it's one of two. You're either team Joey and Rachel or team Ross and Rachel – and it will probably come as no surprise that the cast were all for the latter.
Ross and Rachel had a love story for the ages, with the classic friends to lovers arc, and while Joey and Rachel had their own period together, according to show writer Adam Chase, that particular storyline wasn't wholly accepted by the cast.
In a new interview with The Guardian, Chase admitted: "The cast was very much against it. It felt very incestuous to them."
While Joey and Rachel tested the waters in season 8, it wasn't until season 10 that they officially began dating – much to Ross's dismay.
The pair continued to go out, but they couldn't make it past kissing and soon realised they were not compatible with one another, deciding they were too good as friends to pursue anything romantic.
The cast's dismay at the storyline was previously discussed in book I'll Be There for You: The One About Friends by Kelsey Miller.
"When [creators Marta] Kauffman and [David] Crane first approached the cast in season 8 with the idea of Joey falling in love with Rachel, everyone balked," Miller wrote.
"LeBlanc said it felt incestuous."
It's no secret that LeBlanc was against it. Friends executive producer and director Kevin S Bright told Digital Spy back in 2018: "I can tell you this – in the beginning, Matt LeBlanc did not want to do that story.
"He was very firmly against it, saying that he's Ross's friend, and that the type of friend that Joey is would never go and take someone else's girlfriend."
But there were some storylines that were met with more praise than the writers had ever imagined, including the reveal of Monica and Chandler during Ross's wedding.
"It shook us," writer Andrew Reich told The Guardian. "We all just kind of looked at each other like, 'Wow, this is much bigger than we thought'."
It was from that reaction they decided to make Monica and Chandler's relationship a long-term storyline – one that fans all know and love.
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Authors
Katelyn Mensah is the Entertainment and Factual Writer for Radio Times, covering all major entertainment programmes, reality TV shows and the latest hard-hitting documentaries. She previously worked at The Tab, with a focus on reality TV and showbiz news and has obtained a BA (Hons) in Journalism.
