Julia Roberts's Visitor Spot on 'Mates' Virtually Didn't Occur

Simply in time for Tremendous Bowl LV this yr, The Hollywood Reporter sat down with the group behind Mates and requested about how the present managed to snag huge names for Julia Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Brooke Shields for a really particular post-Tremendous Bowl particular 25 years in the past. Appropriately known as "The One After the Superbowl," Roberts appeared as Chandler Bing's center faculty classmate and to be able to get her to seem alongside everybody's favourite group of coffee-obsessed buddies, Matthew Perry needed to write a paper on quantum physics.

David Crane, the present's co-creator, mentioned, "We by no means, over the course of doing the present, wrote for a selected visitor. We got here up with tales we thought had been humorous and put it out to our casting to seek out the perfect folks. However for this episode, we couldn't simply go along with a very good actor. We would have liked names."

Julia Roberts on Mates Credit score: Getty Photos

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Govt producer Kevin Brilliant, obtained even deeper into how Roberts agreed to seem, saying, "Are you aware the story of how we obtained her? Matthew [Perry] requested her to be on the present. She wrote again to him, 'Write me a paper on quantum physics, and I'll do it.' My understanding is that Matthew went away and wrote a paper and faxed it to her the following day."

And so as to add a serious dose of '90s nostalgia to the entire thing, author Alexa Junge defined that Perry and Roberts, who dated after her visitor spot, used the fax machine for extra than simply that physics paper.

"There was quite a lot of flirting over faxing. She was giving him these questionnaires like, 'Why ought to I’m going out with you?' And everybody within the writers room helped him clarify to her why," Junge mentioned. "He might do fairly properly with out us, however there was no query we had been on Group Matthew and attempting to make it occur for him."

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NBC Leisure president Warren Littlefield couldn't consider that the present managed to tug within the huge names. "I bear in mind after I obtained a name and so they mentioned, 'Oh, we obtained Julia Roberts,' and it was like, 'Are you fucking kidding me?'" he mentioned.

Director Michael Lembeck solely has good reminiscences, saying that though Roberts had nervousness about performing in entrance of a stay viewers, she did simply effective.

"Julia Roberts was a pleasure. She hadn't been in entrance of a stay viewers since she did Agnes of God onstage when she was 15," he mentioned. "The primary night time, she held my hand so tightly earlier than she went on that I believed she was going to interrupt my knuckles. Her efficiency nervousness was extraordinary."