An often-quoted bit of trivia about Friends is that actress Patsy Kensit turned down the role of Emily Waltham, Ross’ girlfriend/wife across series 4 and 5 of the sitcom. Emily was portrayed on the show by Helen Baxendale.
The claim shows up on Kensit’s IMDb trivia page, and is often repeated in stories about the actress. Kensit is a popular tabloid target, due to her multiple marriages to rock stars and her appearance in iconic British soaps Emmerdale, Holby City and EastEnders.
Kensit herself told the story when she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2015, and this was breathlessly repeated by several newspapers (see Metro and the Daily Mirror for starters).
The truth is a little less flattering, however. As contemporary documentation makes clear, Kensit didn’t simply turn the role down – she was hired to play Emily but then departed after rehearsals began because her chemistry with the core cast wasn’t right.
The story is told in detail in Penny Stalling’s 1998 book Making Friends In The UK, which describes how the London-based episodes centred around Ross and Emily’s wedding were produced.
Having decided to introduce a British girlfriend for Ross, secret auditions were held in London. Baxendale and Kensit were amongst the contenders, and Kensit eventually scored the role. She flew to LA to starting working with the cast, but problems quickly became evident. As Friends producer Kevin Bright explained to Stalling:
The thing that’s toughest for a new person coming into Friends is that the six of them are such a tight ensemble. They have a shorthand that is really intimidating for a guest actor to walk into. I think Patsy hadn’t ever done a sitcom like Friends before and it all became kind of overwhelming.
Other quotes in the same book also make it clear just how rushed the decision to use Baxendale instead was. “She arrived on Thursday ready to start filming on Friday and she was sitting with us, and Jennifer and I are so close and we were talking about the most personal things,” Courtney Cox recalled. “I think she was a little shocked at how open we are.”
Some media reports from the period tell the same story. An April 10 1998 piece from Entertainment Weekly on Baxendale’s casting notes: “first choice Patsy Kensit (Lethal Weapon 2) hadn’t panned out”. Similarly, an interview with Baxendale in the Philadelphia Inquirer on 23 April 1998 says “film star/famous girlfriend Patsy Kensit had backed out of the part”.
That said, the damage control seems to have started early. By the time Emily first appeared on screen, some newspapers were already reporting that Kensit had turned down the role because she “felt it might be too difficult joining a close-knit troop who have worked together so well”. A similar claim appears in the Daily Record on 14 February 1998.
The excuses also varied. On 13 November 1998, the Manchester Evening News suggested, without citing any sources, that Kensit “didn’t want to leave husband Liam Gallagher behind”. Kensit herself made a similar claim in 2013 – but as we’ve seen, that doesn’t gel with what the show’s production team actually said.
The rushed recasting didn’t make anyone particularly happy. Veteran director James Burrows, who helmed 15 Friends episodes including the pilot, wrote in his book Directed By James Burrows:
In ‘The One with All the Rugby’, I directed Ross with his new girlfriend and future fiancée, Emily (Helen Baxendale). She was nice but not particularly funny. Schwimmer had no one to bounce off. It was like clapping with one hand.
Recasting is common on sitcoms, Burrows points out. “Sometimes you start an arc and it ain’t working out, so you have to get rid of that person. If it’s a day player, it’s a quick goodbye.” Emily was more than a “day player” role, but the principle clearly still applied.
25 years later, Kensit has maintained a successful career, and it’s understandable that she’d prefer to reframe the story of her Friends experience to one where she chose not to do the role. But that reframing is not completely accurate.
For more Friends history, check out which season is the most popular on Netflix.
For more TV mythbusting, check out whether Kwicky Koala was really made in Australia and when Sesame Street first got broadcast down under.
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