Friends: How Emily's Actor Feels About Her Time On The Show
Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) and Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) are perhaps the most famous will-they-won't-they couple on television, with their "Friends" arc pinballing from breaks to botched weddings to babies over the course of ten seasons. Season 4 was their most dramatic roller coaster ride yet. The season opened with the pair briefly reuniting in "The One with the Jellyfish" and closed with Ross accidentally saying Rachel's name at the altar as he married Emily (Helen Baxendale) in London.
Emily ultimately serves as a speed bump in Ross and Rachel's lengthy romance — not to mention another notch in Ross' divorce history — and her 14 episodes on "Friends" remain one of Baxendale's best-known roles, even though that chunk of Seasons 4 and 5 tends to be one that fans skip on a "Friends" rewatch.
For Baxendale, who was 27 years old when she was cast on the sitcom, "Friends" was a memorable albeit surreal experience. "I am very proud and delighted to have been in such an amazingly successful and international show," the actress told the Mirror in 2012. "It's always a talking point and it was a very clever set up – even now young people especially seem to love it. But it doesn't feel like part of my life at all now. I look upon it as a strange surreal little blip in my life almost like a dream."
Baxendale's time on "Friends" was also a critical learning experience for how the actress would come to understand and approach fame.
Helen Baxendale didn't want the level of fame that came with Friends
When Helen Baxendale made her "Friends" debut in 1998, it came with a level of fame and public scrutiny that she hadn't yet experienced, even though she had already starred in the successful British dramas "Cardiac Arrest" and "Cold Feet."
"You couldn't walk down the street to buy a pint of milk. In fact, you couldn't go anywhere," Baxendale told the Daily Mail. "It was impossible to mix with the crowd, and do what ordinary people do," she continued, noting how she and her friends and family were hounded by the paparazzi during that time, though not nearly as badly as the main stars of "Friends." "I saw it as a gilded prison. It was something I wasn't prepared for."
Baxendale admitted that she might have sustained that level of fame had she stayed in the United States. "I didn't want to live in America, when all my circumstances were leading me back to Britain," she said. Indeed, she had to be written out of "Friends" earlier than anticipated because she became pregnant with her first child.
Instead, Baxendale carved out a career for herself in England, taking on lead roles in series like "Kidnap and Ransom" and BBC One's "Noughts + Crosses." She also went on to have two more children. "I don't regret it for a minute," she continued. "To me there are many aspects of being ambitious. Yes there is your career, but there are also many other ambitions. There is this perception that TV is glamorous and it is the pinnacle of your existence — I don't think it is."