Abstract
This chapter explores Friends’ engagement with casting and performance. Where such issues have been considered within scholarship on the genre, multi-camera sitcoms are frequently associated with a heightened style of acting. Arguing that Friends deploys distinctly holistic performances that, grounded in realism and naturalism, support the series’ strategy of intimacy, the chapter pays detailed attention to the work of Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc. It further illuminates the particularities of multi-camera performance by examining the work of some of the guest actors on the show, with a focus on Brad Pitt’s struggles with the ‘three-headed monster’ that is multi-camera production. The chapter also pays attention to how Friends engages with stardom through attending to Bruce Willis’s guest appearance. Drawing on interviews with Marta Kauffman, Kevin S. Bright and James Burrows, the chapter concludes by reflecting on how Friends’ production team facilitated the successful performances by its core cast.
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Knox, S., Schwind, K.H. (2019). The One where They Tame the Three-Headed Monster: Foregrounding Holistic Performance. In: Friends. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25429-2_3
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