I think maybe Jennifer Anniston, even though personally I like Lisa Kudrow the best. But she is typecast as ‘quirky’…not as a leading lady. Courtney Cox will always be somewhere I suppose.
The men on the show seem to be doomed to Anson Williamshood and Donnie Mostness.
I have yet to see or hear of a film with one of the Friends cast that was any good, except for perhaps a couple of movies with Courtney Cox - where she was part of an ensemble. But ‘Ace Ventura’ and the "Screams’ are not exactly AFI 100 material. Supposedly Jennifer Anniston is about to prove to us all that she is an Actress in “The Good Girl”.
No, I think you about pegged it. I think Lisa Kudrow is the most talented of the lot by far, but it’s Jennifer that’s still going to be making movies and gracing the cover of People.
I think all the guys are great at what they do, but I fear that what they do is really all they can do.
I think Aniston has proven herself as an heir to the girlfriend throne Meg Ryan has been sitting on since Top Gun in '86.
Movies to prove this point include:
Picture Perfect
The object of my affection
Office Space
If Matthew Perry would stay off the booze and drugs, he could prolly make it as an American Hugh Grant.
Lisa Kudrow is getting too old for Hollywood standards. She’ll be looking at a lot of parts as ‘Mom’, and in a supporting role. She turned 39 this year.
WHAAAAT?! How can you all ignore the glory that was The Pallbearer?!
I prefer Aniston to Kudrow any day. Sure, most of her movies are light chick-flick fare, but I definitely like those over Kudrow’s dim blonde act. As for the guys, I really did enjoy Perry in Fools Rush In, but I hear that Serving Sara is the worst piece of film EVER and surely won’t help his career any. Though the baseball chimp movie didn’t completely bury Matt LeBlanc (even though it should have).
But I agree that Kudrow and Aniston will be the only ones to ever make any real mark. Probably Aniston more than Kudrow.
DrFidelius and Intaglio: IMO they’re certainly celebrities/tabloid fodder. E! News, Entertainment Tonight, and Access Hollywood would definitely call them stars, as in “the stars shone tonight at blah de blah’s movie premiere.” They are not (on the whole; Lisa Kudrow maybe), however, actors. They’re television actors, and that’s a whole nother thang.
As much as I can’t stand him, Schwimmer might end up with the broadest and artistically solvent career, what with his work with Lookingglass in Chicago. He’s currently working on a stage adaptation of Studs Terkel’s “Race,” and I thought his performance in All the Rage was a nice change from the eternally shvitzing Ross Geller.
Here’s an article on the future of the Friends from the NY Times:
It depends what you mean by “stars.” Heck, it even depends what you mean by “still”?
Are you suggesting any of them are big stars NOW? The SHOW is a huge hit, but the show’s success isn’t a reflection of any individual’s popularity or star power. Any one of them could have been replaced at any time over the run of the series. They’re all capable actors, but none is a huge star, and none is irreplaceable.
I don’t see ANY of them having stellar movie careers. Oh, I can see Anniston maklng more films on the level of “The Good Girl” for a few years, and I can see Kudrow in more films on the level of “The Opposite of Sex”… but only in supporting roles, not as a star. And I imagine Perry can continue making mediocre, not-quite-direct-to-video romantic comedies for several years to come.
He can get the roles Bill Pullman turns down.
Schwimmer, Cox and LeBlanc, however, have no real future in movies at all.
I think the stars of “Friends” were smart not to get big egos, a la Suzanne Somers or David Caruso. They knew they had a good thing going, and stuck with it. That was good thinking, and so they’ll all be financially secure the rest of their lives.
They NEED to be, because none of them will ever be involved with anything this popular or successful again.
I can’t watch Bob Denver in anything without thinking of Gilligan. Likewise, I think most of the Friends cast is always going to be typecasted as those characters. Even if Matt Leblanc suddenly develops into the world’s best actor, I think he will still be doomed to play “Joey” roles for the rest of his life. With one exception, I don’t think any of them have enough personality to rise above that. The cast of Seinfeld is at least as comedically talented as the Friends cast, and they’re 0 for 3 so far. I can’t imagine the Friends actors doing much better.
The one exception would be Jennifer Aniston. She gets enough press as herself due to the hair styles, Brad Pitt, and her looks that I think she has a public identity as herself, not just as Rachel. Plus I think she is a good actress, even if the roles she has played have so far been pretty similar. Granted, Matthew Perry is getting a lot of press attention lately as well, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to translate quite as well.
I find it a little bit depressing that some people will always resort to celbrety bashing when something gets very popular. True - Aniston is not Shakespeare material, but she’s at least as good an actress as:
Med Ryan
Goldie Hawn
Jennifer Lopez
Mira sorvino
Jennifer Esposito
Julia Roberts
and quite a few others who are cute fems doing cute commedies.
And that’s good enough, to base a Hollywood career.
All of them are good actors. Compare to day-time soaps to see the fourth level of acting (Movies a+b, TV a, above) and start thinking about all those below. We might perceive them as so-so, but Le Blanc does a really good job at acting as a bad actor - you need talent for that. The weakest are Cox and Schwimmer. Cox, 'cause she’s the worst of the six, and Schwimmer, because his typecast in Friends have tainted him for all years to come. He’ll need to play a role like Spacey’s in S7ven and have an equally big hit, to wash that image away.
There’s another way to think about this: Could Tom Hanks’ future career have been charted based on his Bosom Buddies work circa 1981?
I do agree that LeBlanc and Schwimmer are likely to be typecast in the future, a la Tony Danza. Maybe they can hash out solid character-actor careers like Oliver Platt and Steve Buscemi have been doing. Of course, it only takes one great role and a lucky bounce for either LeBlanc or Schwimmer to change their apparent fates.
As noted by others, Anniston is likely to be around the most consistently in the short term. Kudrow has a shot at a quasi-Geena-Davis kind of career.
Perry’s recent substance abuse problems are a real shame, and have really set him back. He’ll always be a deep sleeper to come back big in the movies, though.
I think Courteney Cox will continue to have movie roles in the years to come. She always had the occasional TV/movie roles in the years between Misfits of Science and Friends, after all, and she’s still considered a glamour girl. I think she’d have to land a pretty plum role in order to maintain a high-profile star status, though.
As much as I detest the whiney typecast Anniston, I also think she is the only one to remain solvent for any period of time after the show tanks. I have no idea how she gets parts in movies. They are all as whiney and clueless as the Rachel character and it just makes me not want to see her ever. I should take notes and stop buying any product advertised in movies and/or tv shows she appears in while writing to the producers and the respective companies. Down with Jennifer Anniston!
Kudrow is probably the most interestingly written character on the show but as said earlier she is getting old by hollywood’s standards. Not only that, I don’t think she has the personality to work well as a big Hollywood styled movie star regardless of how talented I think she is.
LeBlanc has been typecast for a longtime. He was once Kelly Bundy’s equally idiotic boyfriend on Married with Children. He seems to have himself typecast into a very specific role. It won’t last once he starts looking a little older unless he manages to get a series of drastically different parts soon.
Schwimmer, I hate him as Ross. He will be as typecast as Gilligan. whenever the studios need a whiney, ranty male they will go for him just as the studios seem to have used Anniston. Too bad he isn’t nearly as good looking as she is thus hampering his carreer.
Perry is a decent actor. No real opinion of him so he will likely go the same way as Kudrow. Nothing big just a set of bit parts. He isn’t nearly likable enough to hold a starring roll. If he markets himself as a supporting roll character he could do pretty well though.
Jennifer Aniston doesn’t strike me as portraying “whiney” characters so much as “fretful” or “concerned” characters. IMHO, this conveys a more down-to-earth image, an image that to my mind complements her looks, which are more in the “cute-pretty” area than the “check out the veins in my neck while my cheekbones mortally wound you coz I’m a sleek supermodel” area. I’d rather watch Aniston in pretty much anything, even if it was a chick-flick romantic comedy, than watch those girls from the god-awful Charlie’s Angels movie.
See what roles Aniston starts getting. The Good Girl got pretty good reviews. You plug her into the next Coen brothers or Wes Anderson movie, give her something to work with under a director who knows how to expand the abilities of his actresses, she could find a place in quality cinema. Otherwise she could end up the next Helen Hunt or Meg Ryan, which is not too shabby even if the roles are pretty shallow most of the time.
The rest of the cast? I’ve never thought Kudrow had much talent. It does take a clever actor to portray an idiot, that’s a familiar axiom. How much of that is her, and how much the material? I don’t see much in her career but more bottled water voiceovers.
Perry, IMHO, was pretty good in The Whole 9 Yards. Good enough to lock down a busy character-actor career, perhaps get a good break and better roles again if he finds a spot in a film’s ensemble cast at some point and stands out. If nothing else, he had a TV movie career before Friends, he’d be a real star in that genre. Could he even cross to drama in a future TV show? If he can shed his persona, I could see it.
Matt LeBlanc was in Red Shoe Diaries 7, maybe he could go back and work for Zalman King? King is the most artsie, incomprehensible erotic writer/producer in the genre, and he used Mickey Rourke in two films, so the possibilities are endless! That’s about the best I forsee in his future.
In my opinion, it’s Kudrow who has the best shot. All of the cast has the basic essentials of on-going celebrity; they’re already well-known, they’re popular, they’re managing their careers and lives fairly well (with the possible exception of Perry), and they’re capable if not brilliant actors. So ongoing fame is going to depend on who makes the smartest choices in future projects. And in my opinion, Kudrow has shown the best ability in picking good projects. While she hasn’t made any commercially blockbuster movies she’s been in several well-made ones; this indicates she can tell the difference between a good script and a bad one.
Lisa Kudrow has already been really good in two movies I can think of: Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and Analyze This.
Aniston and Courtney are both going to get work b/c of their Hollywood connections.
Joey and Ross will probably always be able to get work in other TV fare, but I don’t see much beyond that. Although I gotta admit that Ross was pretty good in Apt Pupil.
