Conversation Piece Fun & Famous

Things you didn’t know about your favorite series

I have watched Friends, Sex and the City and Gossip Girl more repeatedly than any other series. On a drizzly Saturday night, lonely Sunday or an annoying Wednesday, it doesn’t matter, there’s is just nothing better than a binge session watching one of these shows. I can honestly say that I know every one of the story-lines by heart, but there’s always something more to learn. Here we go.

Gossip Girl

  • From 2007 to 2010 Blake (Serena) and Penn (Dan) were also dating in real life.

  • The rich kid series of books was first intended to be a film adaptation staring Lindsey Lohan in the role of Blair.

  • Ed Westwick (Chuck) first auditioned for the roll of Nate. At first the producers didn’t want to cast him at all saying that ‘he looked more like a serial killer than a romantic lead.’

  • The writers of the series knew from episode one that Blair and Chuck would become an item.

Friends

  • The name of the series was not the original title. The first idea was Insomnia Café, then came Friends Like Us, followed by Across The Hall and then Six Of One. Eventually they settled on just plain old Friends.

  • From the very beginning, all six actors were paid $22,000 per episode. If that wasn’t crazy enough, by the last season each of them could write up an invoice asking for a MILLION per episode.

  • Gunther, the half-Dutch, peroxide blond bartender at the Central Perk cafe, with the huge crush on Rachel, was only given a name midway through the second season. His first line of text was delivered in the 33rd episode and consisted of one word: ‘yeah’. The idea was for him to be a passing character, but he was the only one who knew how the coffee machine worked so the writers wrote him into the series.

  • The filming of a 20 minute episode took roughly 5 hours and was always filmed with a live audience, except for the important cliffhangers.

  • Remember the big white dog that Joey bought in that very short moment that he had actually earned some cash? That was in fact a gift for Jennifer Aniston from her friends to celebrate that she had landed the roll of Rachel.

  • The ages of the friends were always a bit vague. For example Ross was 29 for more than 3 years and within one year he had celebrated his birthday in October and then again in December. Basically it was never known just how old any of them actually were.

Sex and the City

  • Sarah Jessica Parker was the only one in the cast who had stipulated in her contract that she would not show herself naked.

  • The well known tutu worn in the opening scene cost $5 and came from a secondhand store. No one found it flattering except Sarah Jessica and Patricia Field (the series stylist) but after lots of complaining the girls got their way and the tutu was quickly brought into the world of fame. It’s now framed and hanging in producer, Michael King’s office.

  • Season five only had eight episodes because Parker was pregnant in real life.

  • Carrie’s apartment was sold in 2012 for nearly 10 million dollars (!!!)

  • In 2001 Sarah Jessica also became the executive producer of the show and earned a sweet three million per episode (!!!)

  • During the entirety of the the series, no one, I repeat: no one, wore the same outfit twice.