The hit ’90s sitcom Friends does a fantastic job of detailing the complicated love lives of Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), Joey Tribbinai (Matt LeBlanc), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston) and Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) for 10 seasons.
Monica and Chandler have their bumps, while Phoebe and Joey navigate love life. Still, the most complex relationship on Friends is that of Ross and Rachel, a what-they-what-they-want romance that begins in season 1 and, by the end of season 10, is nicely wrapped with a bow. .
The actress explained that they “channeled all of [her’s] adoration and love for each other into Ross and Rachel,” which was clearly evident on screen. The actors didn’t do much to hide their crushes from their on-set colleagues, often curling up on the famous cafe’s couch and falling asleep in each other’s arms. However, David Schwimmer confirmed that they never became an element in his personal life: “We never crossed that line, we respect it.”
Meanwhile, Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry admitted that they knew of Aniston and Schwimmer’s feelings for each other, and Matt LeBlanc joked that it was silly that they never connected.
Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer’s Friends co-stars weren’t the only ones aware of the sparks that flew between the two early on in the show, particularly during Season 1. In an interview, series co-creator Marta Kauffman and director -slash-executive-producer Kevin Bright confessed that almost everyone on set was speculating about the two actors’ feelings for each other, as they were too obvious to ignore.
“It was a very hot topic on the set because the electricity between them in the scenes. Everyone suspected that something was up”
“Nobody found anything [what really happened between Aniston and Schwimmer]; it was just rumors based on how good they were as actors, but the set was on fire.”
And just as Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer never crossed a line in bridging their personal and professional lives, the minds behind Friends didn’t let the stars’ initial romantic feelings shape the story between Ross and Rachel. Although Aniston and Schwimmer never became a couple in real life, at least Ross and Rachel finally got their happy ending in the series finale. All’s well that ends well, right?
