Memories of working as an extra on Friends

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book ‘Adventures in Tinsel Town’, which I am publishing in tribute to Matthew Perry, whose recent death has rightly been met with tributes and sadness at him losing his long struggle with addiction. RIP.

One of the best things about working as an extra on Friends, or indeed any of the other sitcoms I worked on as an extra on in my time, was the experience of being in front of a live audience. It was then you got a taste of the buzz that the cast of this major sitcom experienced on a weekly basis.

The first time I was booked by Central Casting to work on this show, I was so excited I phoned home to tell my mum. Then I phoned my sister, followed by my brother, followed by friends. After that I called people I hadn’t spoken to you in years to let them know as well.

It was surreal to think I was going to be an extra on the most popular sitcom on the planet at the time, a show I used to watch every Friday night in my small one-bedroom flat in Edinburgh, rain lashing off the window as I lost myself in the unending trials and tribulations of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross, and Chandler. In those days, my Friday night ritual began with Frazier at 8 followed by Friends at 8.30. Or was it Frazier at 8.30 followed by Friends at 9? No matter, the point is that at this point I was made for Friends and Friends was made for me.

Friends was shot on Stage 24 (stage as in soundstage) on the Warner Bros studio lot in Burbank, a mere twenty minute drive from Hollywood. The journey took you along North Cahuenga until you got to West Olive Avenue, and from there onto Burbank before taking Warner Boulevard along to extras parking opposite the main entrance to the studio lot.

By the time you retrieved your garment bag from the car containing your wardrobe changes, then walked across Warner Boulevard to Warner Bros entrance, joining a large group doing the same, then passed through security (Warner Bros employed the most stringent and thorough security checks of any of the studio lots, involving a full body search along with a thorough search of your bags), you’d already eaten up twenty minutes.

Once you were finally through security and entered the lot — a massive place that blew you away the first time you…