Brooke Shields Describes Her Boyfriend's 'Petulant' Response to Her 'Friends' Role & How She Used the Cameo as a Springboard to a Bigger Project
Brooke Shields looked back at her guest spot on Friends in the ’90s and spoke very candidly about one moment that darkened her memory of the otherwise enjoyable cameo.
The 57-year-old model played a character who was obsessed with Matt LeBlanc‘s character Joey when she appeared on the second season of the show in 1996.
In a new interview, she described how her instincts for the character led to a starring role in Suddenly Susan later that year. She also spoke very candidly about the “petulant” way her then-boyfriend, tennis star Andre Agassi, responded to the role.
Read more about Brooke Shield’s recollections of filming Friends…
Speaking to The New Yorker, Brooke recalled that Andre “stormed out” after she licked Matt‘s fingers in a scene.
“In the scene, I’m supposed to lick Joey’s fingers, because they’re the hands of a genius, and I want to devour them, and I’m a nut,” she recalled, adding that her co-star was “cute” about it.
She remembered them joking about Matt washing his hands and her having a mint. According to Brooke, Andre was not having as good of a time as they were.
“Andre was in the audience supporting me, and he stormed out. He said, ‘Everybody’s making fun of me. You made a fool of me by that behavior.’ I’m, like, ‘It’s comedy! What is the matter with you,’” she said.
Apparently, Andre went home and “smashed all of his trophies” in response. Brooke also shared what might have been the root of the problem there.
“I learned later that he was addicted to crystal meth at that point, so that irrational behavior I’m sure had something to do with that,” she said.
“It was petulant behavior,” she added. “It co-opted [the moment] for me emotionally, because all of a sudden then my focus went to him.”
Brooke also described a moment where she convinced TV execs that she had the acting chops for a bigger role. She recollected that there were hesitations for her to play the character so large. One thing in particular was a crazed laugh that she rehearsed.
“I throw my head back in this cackle,” she explained. “We had done it in rehearsal, and they said, ‘It’s too crazy. Don’t do it.’ And I begged for it. ‘It’s so funny. It just makes her crazier. And she’s pretty, so she needs to really be crazy.’ And they were, like, ‘No, no.’”
They later saw that she was right: “We did the first take, and it was fine. And then the second take, they scream, ‘Shields! Put it back in!’ All of a sudden, the energy changed, and all these men in suits started coming into the studio. The next day, I was asked if I wanted to do my own television show.”
Find out why Brooke recently apologized to her college boyfriend.