
It’s hard to say anything about “Friends” that hasn’t already been said. It’s a show that was as popular in its 10 seasons on air as it continues to be nearly three decades later. (The series concluded in May 2004.) More than a few calls for the juggernaut comedy to return to screens has been made, but all six main cast members, as well as the three creators, Kevin Bright, Marta Kaufman, and David Crane, have been adamant about leaving the series where it ended.
However, when the opportunity came for a different type of special, the first question after “What?” was “Who?” It turns out unscripted producer-director Ben Winston was the perfect person to take on the challenge of distilling a cultural touchstone into a reunion that paid homage to the beloved series, while providing audiences with something new and, most importantly, satisfying. When quarantine pushed back the filming date, Winston dove into even more research and prep to create a nearly two-hour-long ode to a series—which aired last month on HBO Max—unlike anything that came before it.
How did you come to be the one to get this project together?
I was producing the Kacey Musgraves Christmas show for Amazon at the end of July 2019 and my phone rang, and it was Mike Darnell at Warner Brothers. We’ve worked on a couple of projects together and wanted to do something for the 25th anniversary. Bear in mind this year is now the 27th anniversary. He said the cast and Bright, Kauffman, and Crane might be interested and if it happened, what would it be? I didn’t want it to be what people would necessarily expect—a host on a soundstage interviewing the six cast members. The creators agreed to meet me, but I could see that they were sort of reluctant. As we were talking, lots of those ideas that you saw on screen came to me. By the end of it, I was sort of pitching all these ideas. They said, “Well, this sounds cool. If you could get the cast on board, then that would be interesting.”
How did you get the cast on board?
My first meeting was a Skype call in 2019. I met with David Schwimmer and he was amazing. He’s a director and a producer himself so he would make my ideas better. We got on really well. He said, “You should take this idea and meet with the cast.” So I went around and met all of them, one by one, some of them together. The origins of it were really informal, just some really nice meetings with the cast and creators, and then, of course, I took the idea to HBO Max. You’ve got to be careful with these sorts of reunions, that they don’t get indulgent. You have to have moments of laughter and light. It can’t all just be reminiscing, we also had to make sure that there were real pops of fun, like the quiz or the table reads, or the fashion shows. Those bits were just as important as anything.
“If you’re going to make an hour 45-minute film about a 22-minute sitcom, how can you keep people engaged and never wanting to leave?”
How did you decide what the narrative of the special would be?
I always work off a board. I spent hours in my office looking at this board before I’d shot anything, imagining what could lead to what. For example, I knew that David Beckham’s favorite clip was [from the episode] “The One Where No One Was Ready.” So as David Beckham talks about that, we get to show that classic clip, then we can go to Bright, Kaufman, and Crane, and they can talk about the fact that the only reason they made it was for a budget—no extra sets, no extra costs. It was supposed to be the cheapest episode ever. But then Matt LeBlanc breaks his shoulder. Then we go to the stage and the documentary element, and Matt LeBlanc is telling everybody the story of how he broke his shoulder. Then you go to the footage, which we’ve found on old film, and we found Matt breaking his shoulder, which no one had ever seen before. Then we go to the element of the documentary, where the cast is watching that footage, then we go back to the creators talking about how it became the most expensive [episode] that they ever did rather than the cheapest one. And then we go back to Matt LeBlanc, who told me a story when I was getting to know him about the fact that it was the only day they didn’t do a huddle. That leads me to my next section of show night footage and going from a huddle into a show and into performing in front of a live audience. Then that led me into the reason Chandler and Monica got together long-term was because of an audience reaction when they first slept together, and then, bang, we’re into a new story.
It’s really important with an audience that you always think about how you keep them engaged and keep them traveling with you. I never wanted to stay in one place for more than five or six minutes because it feels same-y. So when you go back to the outdoors, or when you go back to the documentary footage, or when you go to a clip, it always feels like you’re ready for that moment. I didn’t always know what they were going to talk about. I didn’t always know what their answers were going to be. Of course, things changed in the edit all the time. But I very much shot that show knowing that I wanted one thing to lead to the next. If you’re going to make an hour 45-minute film about a 22-minute sitcom, how can you keep people engaged and never wanting to leave?
What research and prep did you do?
I think that the year break helped me with regards to this special specifically. We were supposed to film on March 22, 2020. I think that we only got this greenlit, in something like December 2019, or maybe January 2020. I literally only had half of January, February, and then March we were already building. I was running to that finish line. In the year halt, I read a couple of books about the show. I spent more time with the cast, even if it was just on Zoom or text. I got to know them a lot better than I would have the first time around. I got more stories out of them. I did a couple of chats with each one of them separately, just about what they remembered and some remembered loads and others didn’t remember anything. I knew that Matt LeBlanc had broken his shoulder in that episode so I knew to spend a month hunting for that footage. I used lockdown to watch all 236 episodes, which was a lot. But it was really useful because it meant I could make notes on each one and think, This would be a really good clip to play or, That would be a great thing to do the table read on. Or, I forgot about that guest star. So much happened in those 10 seasons.
“I really enjoyed being with these six people. They were generous to me, they were very giving. Also, they’re all very savvy and very good creatively. It was a very collaborative process. They are much more than actors, they know what works. They know the show, they know what makes it great.”
What was unique for you about this project?
This used a few different elements of stuff I’ve done before, because I have made documentaries, I’ve also made talk shows, I’ve made comedy sketch shows. It’s an amalgamation of all of those elements. There’s a bit of talk show, there’s a bit of documentary, there’s a bit of variety show. I guess the biggest challenge to overcome was that it was a very ambitious show. If you think about how many different people were filming, from kids in Ghana to nine celebrities, to getting all those people that come on that day to getting the six of the cast together to Phil filming the three creators—there were a lot of different elements to it. It was just a huge undertaking to shepherd the project through. It was a lot of work. But it was a job that I thoroughly enjoyed. Whenever you’re making a documentary or a show with anybody and you don’t know the talent, you’re so reliant on the fact that you are going to get along with whoever it is. I really enjoyed being with these six people. They were generous to me, they were very giving. Also, they’re all very savvy and very good creatively. It was a very collaborative process. They are much more than actors, they know what works. They know the show, they know what makes it great. It was a really rewarding process.
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