Friends: Can they make it as movie stars?

The cast of the hit show Friends.

There’s never been a show quite like Friends. Its distinguishing feature being its cast of six, all of whom star equally. There are no supporting roles on Friends, at least not among the main six. This is not the case regarding their various forays into movies however, where it’s easy to see that not all Friends are created equally.

Ironically, the year Friends debuted (1994) Courtney Cox starred in one of the biggest comedies of that year when she co-starred with Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura. The irony is that nine years later, just prior to Friends' tenth, and final season, it was Jennifer Aniston who co-starred with Jim Carrey in one of the biggest comedies of 2003; Bruce Almighty. This flip-flop of the most successful female Friend is symptomatic of how the different Friends have risen and fallen over the years. It might seem odd now, but when the show debuted it was David Schwimmer who was deemed the star by NBC. It was he who was first offered more money by the network and who refused, beginning the tradition of negotiating as a group. In more recent times, it was Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston who climbed to the top of the Friends food chain, leading the negotiations during the infamous time when the entire cast negotiated their way to $1 million per episode.

With the show ending, we thought now was a good time to take a look at the film careers of our Friends.

Jennifer Aniston, of all the cast has become the biggest celebrity, helped in part by her marriage to Brad Pitt. She scored a critical hit with The Good Girl, her only role to date that didn’t find her playing a variation of Rachel Green. Bruce Almighty, in which she played the standard movie girlfriend, is the only true blockbuster in which she's appeared. However, with her star status now firmly cemented, Jennifer has the best chance of a movie career of all the Friends.

Courtney Cox had the biggest career before starring in Friends. In the 80’s, she was known for her role as the fan that danced with Bruce Springsteen in his Dancing in the Dark video. Movie wise, she appeared in such forgettable films as Cocoon, The Return and Masters of the Universe. Apart from co-starring in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, she also found success as Gale Weathers in the Scream trilogy. The last one was made in 2000. Cox has not scored big at the box office since. She is, however, working on a new film called Caught in the Act. It remains to be seen whether or not she can rediscover her earlier film success.

Lisa Kudrow might just be the most talented of all the Friends cast. She’s been the star of only a few movies and yet in her roles she’s managed to find a variety that’s escaped the others. She’s yet to have played a Phoebe role in a movie, although her part in Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion came closest. She’s done independent dramatic roles in The Opposite of Sex and Wonderland as well as smaller parts in bigger movies such as Analyze This. She also seems to be the one Friend who’s able to move between comedy and drama and find success in both. Aniston might be a bigger star, but Kudrow is the better actress.

Matt LeBlanc does not have the best film resume of the group. His first movie of note was playing second fiddle to a monkey in the baseball comedy Ed. His best attempt at film success was the dismal Lost in Space. He played the macho hero well enough, but not well enough to stand out. His recurring, and utterly forgettable, role in The Charlie's Angels movies is pretty much just Joey with a steady girlfriend. In All the Queen's Men, he was completely miscast as a rebellious soldier. Hopefully LeBlanc will find success with his spin-off television show Joey, because his chances at a film career so far seem rather poor.

Matthew Perry might be a talented actor with a huge repertoire of characters inside him, but it’s also possible that we’ll never get to see any of them since he seems incapable of getting an acting job that isn’t just Chandler Bing with a different name. In The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel, he played Chandler as a dentist. In Serving Sara, he was Chandler as a process server. So far, none of his movies have been runaway successes, but make just enough money so that he is able to keep doing them. This easily makes him the male Friend most likely to succeed.

David Schwimmer has the absolute worst track record of the cast when it comes to feature films. That is to say that he has done the least. The only two films worth mentioning are Six Days Seven Nights and Apt Pupil. Neither of which he starred in. He made a decent appearance in the HBO mini series Band of Brothers. As far as theatrical releases go, Schwimmer has the bleakest outlook, and will have the hardest time getting film work. He just does not have enough credits to graduate.

None of the Friends' cast has single handedly carried a feature film. They may never. Is this a fault of their own? Do they lack the talent and or star quality? Is this the fault of producers who only see them as their television personas, and therefore are reluctant to cast them in different roles? Either way, one thing is certain, this group of actors endeared themselves to millions of people who hope to see them continue to act for years to come.