During Friends' ten season run, the show featured a truly amazing array of extremely talented guest stars. For proof of that fact, all you have to do is look at a list of some of the Friends guest stars who went on to attain fame after their appearance on the show.
In addition to all of the former Friends guest stars who went on to become rich and famous, the sitcom was able to get many already massive stars to join the cast for an episode or two. Of course, that makes all the sense in the world given the fact that Friends was so immensely popular that even being tangentially linked to the series would be a boon to most actor’s careers.
Since showing up on Friends was a big opportunity, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the vast majority of the show’s guest stars had very positive things to say about their appearances. However, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, there was one iconic actor whose comments over the years have made it pretty clear that she didn’t get along with the people who starred in Friends.
An Icon Speaks Out
In 2001, Kathleen Turner showed up in a pair of Friends episodes as a very memorable character, Chandler’s transgender father. To say that the show did not handle portraying a transgender character well is such a massive understatement that it is an almost laughable statement. After all, Chandler’s father was treated with constant derision just because of who the character is as a person.
Of course, just because Friends’ writers were extremely disrespectful to the transgender community doesn’t mean that the actor who brought Chandler’s dad to life should have been treated poorly as well. However, according to what Kathleen Turner has said over the years, she felt disrespected by the show’s cast. In fact, according to what she told Vulture in 2016, Turner felt the stars of Friends were very inconsiderate and rude.
“I’ll be quite honest, which is my wont: I didn’t feel very welcomed by the cast. I remember I was wearing this difficult sequined gown — and my high heels were absolutely killing me. I found it odd that none of the actors thought to offer me a seat. Finally, it was one of the older crew members that said, ‘Get Miss Turner a chair.’ The Friends actors were such a clique — but I don’t think my experience with them was unique. I think it was simply that they were such a tight little group that nobody from the outside mattered.”
Kathleen’s Other Comments
Given the fact that the stars of Friends have become so powerful in Hollywood, there definitely wouldn’t be too many actors who would dare to speak out against them. With that in mind, it says an awful lot about how much Kathleen Turner must have disliked working with the show’s stars that she was so frank about their conduct during a public interview. However, it would be pretty weak to assume that Turner couldn’t stand the stars of Friends based on those comments alone.
There is another notable reason to conclude that Kathleen Turner really doesn’t like the stars of Friends, she has also cast serious doubt on their professional skills. For example, later in the same Vulture interview, Turner was asked how talented she thought the stars of Friends were and while she was somewhat diplomatic, she clearly wasn’t willing to compliment them.
“Maybe if I’d had months to work with them, I’d be in a better position to evaluate their skill. But I could only judge based on the period I worked on the show, which wasn’t long. I do respect the camaraderie they had. You can see camaraderie on the screen.” If Kathleen Turner respected the stars of Friends as actors, it is almost certain that she would praise more than just their camaraderie.
On top of making it pretty obvious that she wasn’t a fan of working with the stars of Friends and casting obvious doubt on their acting skills, Kathleen Turner has also criticized the show they starred in. While talking to the publication Gay Times in 2018, Turner implied that she doesn’t think that Friends deserves a certain level of respect. “I don’t think [the show has] aged well. It was a 30-minute sitcom. It became a phenomenon, but no one ever took it seriously as a social comment.”
Of course, most people agree that Friends did a bad job portraying a transgender character so Turner’s comments on that show aging poorly. As a result, some people may find it odd to bring up that statement to support the idea that Turner didn’t like the star of Friends. However, the fact that Turner has criticized Friends and its stars in many ways over the years draws a convincing picture of her distaste for the series’ stars.
