No./6 The One Where We Pulled Off The Friends Reunion
Director BEN WINSTON on the collective effort behind the TV event of the year
THE SIX STARS of Friends had only been together once in the 17 years since the show ended, when Jennifer Aniston opened her Instagram account with a group selfie in October 2019. Until April of this year, that is, when they gathered for Friends: The Reunion, produced and directed by
Ben Winston, whose day-job is exec-producer of The Late Late Show With James Corden. The initial push for a Friends special came from Mike Darnell, President of Unscripted and Alternative Television at Warner Bros. He called Winston in August 2019, and said that the 25th anniversary of Friends was approaching, that Warner Bros. owned the rights to the show, and that their new streaming service, HBO Max, was launching soon, so maybe Winston could give some thought to how he might make a reunion work.
The first step was for Winston to meet Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, the legendary Friends creators and producers. “During that meeting I suddenly had loads of ideas,” Winston explains. “I started talking about how we could intercut documentary with variety show and talk show and make it really bold and different. They got quite excited and said, ‘If you can pitch the cast and get them on board, It sounds fun.’”
David Schwimmer was the first of the Friends to meet Winston. “It was very good that I met with David initially because he is incredibly creative,” he says. “He’s got a brilliant producer/director’s mind and he would ask me questions that made me really drill down into what would work and what wouldn’t.” Lisa Kudrow was next, and then one by one Winston met Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, Matt Leblanc and, finally, Jennifer Aniston. “She was really positive,” says Winston. “But by then she had heard from the other five that this pitch was pretty good.” In late 2019, after they’d all met Winston in person, the six stars conferred, and agreed collectively to do the show.
Friends: The Reunion was green-lit in January 2020, and Winston had to deliver it by March in time for the launch of HBO Max. “I was a bit like, ‘This is not enough time to make such a massive show,’ but I didn’t really have a choice,” he says.
Then, last March, the world stopped. “So I had an extra year to prepare,” says Winston, philosophically. “But I was worried HBO Max might not still want it, because it was an investment they were making to launch their service.” Of course they did still want it, and in April, the reunion was on.
The real pinch-me moment of the whole process for Winston was when he finally saw the six stars together, as they walked on set. “As soon as you see those six faces together, something insane happens; it’s like an out-ofbody experience and they become this different level of being. It was such an emotional moment to witness”.
FRIENDS: THE REUNION IS ON SKY ON DEMAND AND NOW