Friends bosses have revealed Julia Roberts had a surprising request while she was being persuaded to appear on the show.
The Hollywood star made a guest appearance as a love interest for Chandler in the 1996 Super Bowl episodes during the hit sitcom’s second series.
Matthew Perry, who played Chandler, originally approached her personally for the role of Susie – an old school friend of his character’s – but she really made him graft before signing up.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Friends’ executive producer Kevin Bright revealed: “Do you know the story of how we got her? Matthew asked her to be on the show. She wrote back to him, ‘Write me a paper on quantum physics and I’ll do it’.
“My understanding is that Matthew went away and wrote a paper and faxed it to her the next day.”
Marta Kauffman, who created the show alongside David Crane, said that it was “incredibly exciting” when they secured Julia’s involvement.
“We knew she would have the right touch for it. And when she said yes, it was pretty awesome,” she said.
Julia and Matthew enjoyed a short romance after her Friends appearance, and it turns out the show’s writers played a part in getting them together.
Staff writer Alexa Junge said they were “all on Team Matthew trying to make it happen” for him.
“They may have met before the episode, but she was interested in him from afar because he’s so charming,” Alexa said. “There was a lot of flirting over faxing. She was giving him these questionnaires like, ‘Why should I go out with you?’ And everyone in the writers’ room helped him explain to her why.”
Jeff Astrof, who wrote half the episode, recalled Julia standing on the sidelines finding Matthew’s character hilarious.
“I’m like, ‘I wrote every one of those lines!’” Jeff joked. “I don’t know if she fell in love with Matthew on the spot but they soon started dating. I felt like Cyrano [de Bergerac]. Like, ‘Chandler is going to date Julia Roberts and I’m going to go home to my horrible girlfriend.’ That’s my memory of that episode.”