'Friends' star David Schwimmer recalls 'frightening' moment during live taping that hospitalized co-star
David Schwimmer recalled a "genuinely frightening" moment while live taping the hit show "Friends."
Schwimmer, now 58, revealed the medical emergency that sent his co-star, Matt LeBlanc, to the hospital.
"During the live taping of the show, [Matt LeBlanc] is supposed to do a kind of a pratfall, and he actually dislocated his shoulder," Schwimmer told Entertainment Weekly. "He went totally white, and he stood up, and I could see his shoulder was out. He looked like he was going to pass out."
He recalled "immediately turning to the camera like, 'Cut, cut, cut.' That was genuinely frightening," the actor noted. "You could see how badly hurt he was. And we had to stop filming that night, obviously, and he went to hospital."
"That was scary," he emphasized.
LeBlanc's on-set injury was first revealed during HBO Max's "Friends" reunion. The actors had been filming "The One Where No One’s Ready" when LeBlanc dislocated his shoulder. In the episode, LeBlanc's character Joey fought Matthew Perry's Chandler Bing for a chair in the apartment while waiting for the girls to get ready.
He had successfully filmed the take jumping into a chair three times, but they chose to shoot a fourth take.
"I went to jump over the coffee table and somehow tripped," he explained. "My legs went up in the air and my shoulder came out of the socket."
LeBlanc's injury ended up being written into "The One With the Jam."
"We put that into the show, then we waited until he was OK to go back and film the ending of ‘The One Where No One’s Ready,'" executive producer Kevin Bright said. "What started out to be the simplest ‘Friends’ episode ended up taking the longest amount of time to shoot."
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Schwimmer and LeBlanc starred in "Friends" alongside Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox and the late Matthew Perry. Each cast member was between 25 and 31 years old while filming the first season of the show.
The group has stayed close over the years, especially in the last year following Perry's death. The actor died Oct. 28, 2023 from the "acute effects of ketamine" and subsequent drowning, Fox News Digital previously confirmed.
The sitcom, which premiered on Sept. 22, 1994, followed the story of six friends living in New York City. "Friends" was an immediate hit and lasted for a total of 10 seasons.
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During an "Actors on Actors" conversation in June, Aniston reflected on the day "Friends" premiered.
"It's so strange to even think that it's 30 years old, because it actually just was – I remember the day that it was gonna premiere, on television, on NBC," Aniston explained.
"Me and Matthew Perry were having lunch somewhere, and we knew Lisa was getting her hair colored. So, we ran into the hair salon, and I snuck up, and she was in the sink … and I took the nozzle and just started washing her hair from the guy that was supposed to be doing it. And it definitely flew out of control, and that was unfortunate."
"But the excitement we had, and it feels like yesterday," she added. "The fact that it's had this long, wonderful life, and it still means a lot to people is one of the greatest gifts I think all … six of us ever – we never could have imagined."