The pandemic has certainly rocked the boat for almost everybody. But there’s no denying that the entertainment industry has taken a major hit.
While sports and live music came to a screeching halt, so has the production of television and movies, postponing the filming process of many projects we might’ve been looking forward to watching much sooner has been equally disappointing!
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight , David Schwimmer gave fans an update on when they can expect the Friends reunion to pick up!
If you are anything like me, you have seen every single episode of *Friends* at least 20 times.
I’m not ashamed to admit that as soon as I finish the series, I simply start it over again.
I, essentially, have it playing on an infinite loop on Netflix.
And when you found out that a *Friends* reunion was finally confirmed after all these years, you may have been the most excited you’ve ever been.
ICYMI, it was announced back in February that the main cast of friends would be reunited for an unscripted Exclusive HBO Max Special.
“Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer will return to the original “Friends” soundstage, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank to celebrate the long-running series, which ended its run in 2004,” Variety reported at the time.
(Screaming internally).
While we may have initially been expecting its release to be much sooner, things have justifiably been postponed due to coronavirus.
But while we wait, impatiently, some of the cast members have kindly kept us in the loop on when we can expect the new release date to be.
Most recently, David Schwimmer gave fans an update on. what he is referring to as, a “tricky” *Friends* reunion.
While regrouping has definitely been tricky due to the pandemic, things seem to be slowly coming together.
This isn’t the first time David has chimed in about *Friends* this year.
In a recent interview with The Guardian in early 2020, he touched how, in some ways, Friends has aged poorly. But ultimately, was quite groundbreaking for its time.
He said that *Friends* came out just before the era of technology and social media, making it especially nostalgic.
” Friends is nostalgic because it was a time right before the world profoundly changed in terms of social media and where our focus was,” he said.
“The truth is also that show was groundbreaking in its time for the way in which it handled so casually sex, protected sex, gay marriage and relationships.”
“I feel that a lot of the problem today in so many areas is that so little is taken in context,” he said.
He explained that instead of seeing the show as problematic in 2020, fans should try to look at it from the perspective of the time it was shot.
“You have to look at it from the point of view of what the show was trying to do at the time.”
“I’m the first person to say that maybe something was inappropriate or insensitive, but I feel like my barometer was pretty good at that time. I was already really attuned to social issues and issues of equality.”
“Maybe there should be an all-black Friends or an all-Asian Friends,” he continued .
“But I was well aware of the lack of diversity and I campaigned for years to have Ross date women of color.”
“One of the first girlfriends I had on the show was an Asian American woman, and later I dated African American women. That was a very conscious push on my part .”
Anyways, in a more recent interview with *Entertainment Tonight*, David offered an update on the official reunion.
“I can tell you that we are hoping to shoot [the reunion] in August, in mid-August,” he said .
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Cue the screaming fans.
“But honestly, we will do it when it’s safe,” he said. Which is, of course, amazing to hear.
“There has always been a hope that a component of that reunion show will have a live audience,” he went on .
“Which makes the whole thing really tricky,” he said. “We are obviously not going to risk anyone’s health by doing this.”
He clarified that even though he said they will likely be shooting in August, he truly has “no idea” when they will be able to shoot safely with a live audience .
Hopefully, it will be safe and David and the rest of the *Friends* alumni will be able to resume their plans to film in mid-August!
Let us know what you think of David Schwimmer’s recent update on the reunion and his comments about the lack of diversity on the show in the comments below!
