Friends star Aisha Tyler has reflected on joining the cast of the adored sitcom two decades ago, revealing that fans still approach her about the role in the street.
Tyler joined the show as Charlie Wheeler, paeleantologist and love interest of Matt LeBlanc’s Joey, for the ninth season in 2003.
She was the only Black star to have a recurring role on the series, which has been criticised in recent years for its lack of diversity: all six leads were white.
In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Tyler said of the sitcom’s fans: “To this day, people come up to me and go, ‘Charlie, Charlie,’ or they just go, ‘Black girl from Friends.’”
Speaking about starting the show, she said: “My knees were knocking. I was shocked you couldn’t hear my teeth chattering the entire time I was on set.
“We walked out, and we did a curtain call [where] everybody [does a] bow to the audience at the end of the show. As we’re backstage, Matthew Perry just leans in and goes, ‘Get ready for your life to change.’”
Tyler added: “It was a really sweet, kind thing to say to someone who’s just petrified and just trying not to pee on herself a little bit from fear.”
The actor said she believes that being a fan of the series helped her land her role because she knew how to tell a Friends joke.
“The show had a tempo,” she said. “It had a way of kind of turning things on their head and emphasising words in different ways [than] you would in normal conversation… They just had a way with wordplay and a way with them with delivering lines. It just felt unique to the show.”
Tyler can next be seen in Apple TV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me, alongside Jennifer Garner. The show premieres on 14 April.
