On September 22, 1994, NBC premiered a sitcom about six friends in their 20s and early 30s living in Manhattan. Friends ran for ten seasons, and all ten finished in the top ten of the year's TV ratings. About 52.5 million American viewers watched the finale on May 6, 2004. The stars and the guest players fans remember went on to Oscar-nominated pasts, superhero films, long-running dramas and award-winning streaming series. Here is where some of the faces from Central Perk started out and where their careers have taken them.
Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied architecture briefly before turning to modeling and acting. Director Brian De Palma chose her to be the young woman pulled onstage in Bruce Springsteen's 1984 "Dancing in the Dark" video. After playing Monica Geller on Friends, she became the face of a second franchise as reporter Gale Weathers in the Scream films, starting in 1996. She returned to the role again in 2026. She also starred in Cougar Town and the horror comedy Shining Vale, and she has directed films. In 2023 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Matt LeBlanc
Matt LeBlanc grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and moved to New York at 17 to try modeling. He started out in a 1987 ketchup commercial and was reportedly down to his last eleven dollars before he was cast as Joey Tribbiani. Friends brought him three Emmy nominations, and the role carried on in the spinoff Joey. He later played a fictionalized version of himself in the series Episodes and won a Golden Globe for it in 2012. He co-hosted Britain's Top Gear from 2016 to 2019 and starred in the CBS sitcom Man with a Plan from 2016 to 2020.
Paul Rudd
Paul Rudd was born in Passaic, New Jersey, to British parents. He studied theater at the University of Kansas and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was already known from Clueless when he joined Friends in 2002 as Mike Hannigan, the man who marries Phoebe. Since then he has starred in Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, and he has played Scott Lang, also known as Ant-Man, in five Marvel films. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015, and People magazine named him its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2021. His role in Only Murders in the Building earned him an Emmy nomination.
Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck was born in Detroit in 1945 and served in the California Army National Guard. He became a star as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I. and won an Emmy for the role in 1984. Because he was committed to that series, he had to turn down Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Starting at the end of the second season of Friends, he played Dr. Richard Burke, Monica's older boyfriend and an ophthalmologist. He later starred in nine Jesse Stone TV movies, and from 2010 to 2024 he played Police Commissioner Frank Reagan on CBS's Blue Bloods.
Hank Azaria
Hank Azaria has voiced characters on The Simpsons since 1989, including Moe Szyslak and Chief Wiggum, and that work has won him four Emmy Awards. On Friends he played David, a love interest who first appears in season one and comes back years later intending to propose. In live action he was in Quiz Show, Heat and The Birdcage, which brought him a Screen Actors Guild Award. He won another Emmy for playing Mitch Albom in Tuesdays with Morrie and earned a Tony nomination as Lancelot in Broadway's Spamalot. From 2017 to 2020 he starred as baseball announcer Jim Brockmire in IFC's Brockmire.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courteney_Cox
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Courteney_Cox_1995.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Courteney_Cox_%2710_PaleyFest.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_LeBlanc
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Matt_leblanc_1995_emmy_awards.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Matt_LeBlanc_at_AAAS2026.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rudd
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DJ_Paul_Rudd_portrait.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Rudd_at_the_2026_New_York_Film_Festival-003_(cropped).jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Selleck
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Selleck_Kahala_Hilton.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Selleck_at_Los_Angeles_Times_Festival_of_Books_2026_03.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Azaria
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hank_Azaria_(25755582981)_(cropped).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hank_Azaria_at_the_2026_New_York_Film_Festival-083_(cropped).jpg
