Friends Script Writer Makes Bombshell Claims About How Difficult The Main Cast Was To Work With

Credit: Instagram/Patty Lin

Friends focused on six close friends having the time of their lives in Manhattan, but it turns out that things weren't always so amicable.

That is, at least, what one of the show's former writers claims.

Working on Friends surely wasn't as picturesque as one might expect, according to Patty Lin's new memoir End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood.

The call to work on Friends' seventh season came from Lin, who had previously worked on Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives, and Breaking Bad.

Credit: NBC

Given that Lin had only been in the business for two years, the opportunity was too excellent to pass up, according to the writer, who worked on the series from 2000 to 2001.

“My disillusionment [with the business] had begun at my very first writing job but was momentarily staved off by a positive experience at Freaks and Geeks,” Lin writes in her book, as per TIME.

Although she was ecstatic to meet the famous cast, she continued that the novelty of seeing huge stars up close 'wore off fast'.

“The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out, and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them,” she writes.

Credit: NBC

According to Lin, actors would allegedly purposefully ruin jokes they didn't like, forcing the writers to rewrite them.

She continues by saying that "dozens of good jokes would get thrown out" as a result of a performer fumbling the line or speaking "through a mouthful of bacon."

She reveals that the cast and writers would congregate at "Monica and Chandler's apartment" once the first revision was complete to discuss the screenplay.

Lin claims that the performers have never received any favorable remarks.

“This was the actors’ first opportunity to voice their opinions, which they did vociferously. They rarely had anything positive to say, and when they brought up problems, they didn’t suggest feasible solutions,” she writes.

“Seeing themselves as guardians of their characters, they often argued that they would never do or say such-and-such. That was occasionally helpful, but overall, these sessions had a dire, aggressive quality that lacked all the levity you’d expect from the making of a sitcom.”

Out of the 14 writers, the majority of whom were men, Lin notes that she was the only person of color, which made her experience "imposter syndrome" on a daily basis.

“I didn’t learn that much, except that I never wanted to work on a sitcom again. But the choice had been clear at the time. And, for better or worse, Friends would remain my most recognizable credit,” she adds.