30 years after the debut of the greatest sitcom cast in history, Courteney Cox is reflecting on her journey as Monica Geller and musing on how the Friends alum is faring these days.
Six friends in their mid-20s living their best lives in New York, falling in love, getting married, having children, and getting into all sorts of shenanigans. Heartbreaks, tragedies, follies, and growth through every ordeal imaginable. It certainly makes for one heck of a story, and that certainly was the case in the years when Friends premiered on NBC and roped in tens of millions of viewers every Thursday to watch the stories of Monica Geller and her brother, Ross Geller, living with their two best friends, Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani, and joined by their childhood friend, Rachel Green, and their eccentric buddy, Phoebe Buffay.
The last time we saw the group in the series finale, “The Last One,” Monica and Chandler were leaving their apartment for the suburbs with their new babies. Rachel and Ross had made up, and Phoebe and Joey were opening a new chapter in their respective lives. The Friends fandom has always wanted to know what happened to these characters next, and though we’ll never know the answer to that question, Monica’s actress, now 60, believes that Monica is still “alive and well.”
The actress recently chatted with People.com about the legacy of Friends and whether she still re-watches the show after all these years.
“It’s just insane to me because it feels like time, it goes so fast and I don’t realize it,” She said about the show’s 30th anniversary. “We used to say, ‘Oh, I can’t wait for this month’ or ‘god, it feels like forever.’ I would never say that line anymore.”
Courteney was asked if she was surprised that Monica still lives on in pop culture, but she jokingly said: “Monica is alive and well. Are you kidding?”
If Monica is alive and well, dare we hope the same is true of her husband, Chandler Bing? I haven’t been able to rewatch any Friends episode without remembering the heart-rending fact that Matthew Perry is no longer with us, a sentiment that’s undoubtedly echoed by the entire fandom as well as the cast and crew.
Cox commented on whether Friends would ever be remade, in the way of today’s Hollywood, with a completely new cast. She was very doubtful. “It’s hard to try to redo anything. Anything with ‘re’ in front of it with this group… I think it’s so special.”
Cox’s latest television project was spearheading the satirical comedy Shining Vale, which premiered in 2022. She also executive-produced and appeared in Scream VI.