One of my favorite Friends subplots happened off-screen. David Schwimmer, the future-“Juice” loving actor who played Ross on the NBC sitcom, did not get along with his frequent season one scene partner, Marcel the Monkey.
“I hate the monkey. I wish it were dead,” he told Entertainment Weekly back in 1995. They say time heals all wounds, but not here. During HBO Max’s Friends reunion, Schwimmer said, “Here is my problem: The monkey, obviously, was trained. It had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time. What inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out, and it would get messed up, because the monkey didn’t do its job right.” He added, “It was time for Marcel to f*ck off.”
But Marcel’s trainer think it’s time for Schwimmer to f*ck off.
“I have never ever watched Friends because of Schwimmer’s comments about the monkeys. I have refused to ever since he did an interview after the animals got written out of the show and he said they tried to bite him and throw poop at him. They didn’t do any of that,” Mike Morris told the Sun. “None of it is true, when I was there, none of that ever happened.” He’s speaking out now because he feels Schwimmer’s comments are disrespectful to Monkey, one of the two capuchins who played Marcel on Friends; she passed away last year at 36 years old (the other, Katie, is still alive).
“I just don’t agree with it, if anything he threw off their timing if we want to be truthful. Schwimmer was fine with the monkeys for the first couple of episodes and happy to be there. But people would laugh at the monkey and I think he got jealous because it wasn’t him getting the laughs. He seemed to get a little bitter about them being there after that.”
Morris added, “It got to the point where he just really resented the monkey being there, he obviously had a problem with her and he’s still talking about it now… I find it despicable for him to still be speaking ill of her.”
At least we finally know who put up the “ROSS IS NOT COOL” graffiti.
(Via the Sun)