David Schwimmer has opened up about the ‘genuinely frightening’ moment that Matt LeBlanc was rushed to hospital while filming Friends.
The iconic series aired for 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004, and turned the cast – also made up of Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox – into household names.
The 58-year-old is set to return to our screens in the second season of Hulu’s scare-fest, Goosebumps, but shared that the terrifying screen moments are nothing compared to a moment he was worried for his colleague’s safety.
‘During the live taping of the show, [Matt] is supposed to do a kind of a pratfall, and he actually dislocated his shoulder,’ he revealed in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, discussing the filming of beloved season three episode The One Where No One’s Ready.
‘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.’
David recalled ‘immediately turning to the camera like, “Cut, cut, cut.” That was genuinely frightening. 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.’
The episode aired in September, 1996, and saw Ross (David) rushing the gang to get ready for an important event at the museum, but they all had individual issues to worth through.
Matt’s Joey spent much of the instalment battling with Chandler over who could sit in Monica’s chair – leading to the legendary moment where he wore all of his pal’s clothes out of spite.
However, filming was halted when the actor fell while trying to get into the chair at a crucial moment, and dislocated his shoulder in front of the live audience.
He was forced to wear a sling while his arm healed, with TV bosses writing the injury into the show – most notably in the next episode, The One With The Jam.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2017, Matt shed light on the painful incident and told the host: ‘It was the second scene, Chandler and I are fighting over the big down chair.
‘I’m downstage at the table and he comes in the door – we both look at each other, look at the chair and neither one of us is sitting in it, so we both race to the chair. I have to step over the coffee table and just land in this big, huge comfortable chair. I don’t even think it qualifies as a stunt.
‘Somehow, I ended up completely upside down. I was going to land on my head between the table and the chair, so I put my arm up to break my fall, and just exploded my shoulder.
‘I get up and everybody thought it was part of the show, everyone is laughing. I’m like, “[clutches shoulder] yeah, that’s pretty funny, ha!” just in total pain.’
Things took a turn when Matt went into a backstage area to look at his arm, as he laughed: ‘I go in there and collapse against the wall. I’m looking and my shoulder is gone, my arm is sticking out of my ass, basically.
‘I look up and Anthony Edwards from ER happened to be there watching the show. He comes in and I’m like, “Wow, did I hit my head, too? Because I know you’re not a real doctor!”
‘The fire department came and we had to shut down the show … I did a few episodes in a sling and they wrote it into the show as Joey was jumping on the bed.’
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