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Matt LeBlanc si prepara per la fine di "Friends"
Articolo di Mike Szymanski
LOS ANGELES - Despite recent
coy remarks made to the press by some cast members that just maybe this won't be
the last season of NBC's hit comedy "Friends," actor Matt LeBlanc says this is
indeed it.
"I had a lot of laughs every day there, and it's a group of people who have
become good friends and they all good things must come to an end, and it looks
like this will be the end," LeBlanc tells Zap2it. "I think everyone's decided
that this would be it, it's over."
While he's sad to see it go, the actor is busy lining up work even before his
schedule officially clears up. Currently, he's promoting the small film "All the
Queen's Men" where he plays part of a motley crew of spies who dress up as women
to go undercover to smuggle out a Nazi de-coding machine in WWII. Co-starring
Eddie Izzard and Udo Kier, the $10 million film took 11 weeks to make, and
LeBlanc was paid less than half of his roughly $1-million-per-episode fee that
he currently commands.
To accommodate his schedule on "Friends," he took a red-eye from Los Angeles on
weekends to fly to Europe and drive to sets in Budapest and Vienna, then turn
around a few days later and fly back.
LeBlanc acknowledges he's doing movies such as "Queen's Men" and the "Charlie's
Angels" sequel, as well as "Broad Daylight," to prepare for his career beyond
television, but he still has a vested interest in the characters in the show.
For example, he balked about the love triangle that brought a big dynamic into
the show last season.
"The whole cast was dead set against that, saying it was totally inappropriate,
but then [creator] David Crane said it was very scary and that's why we should
do it," LeBlanc admits. "It was a very carefully walked path, and they wrote it
brilliantly, so I'm really proud of the way it came out."
LeBlanc laughs that his latest film's producer Marco Weber only knew him from
playing Major Don West in the film version of "Lost in Space" and not from his
hit TV show, so he had to audition for the part much like his character Joey
does for acting roles in the series.
"I know Joey better than anyone," says LeBlanc, "But I don't have as much of
that wild energy as he has, I have to pump myself with a bunch of coffee to play
him. I'll miss that, but my body won't."
Rumors have floated for months that LeBlanc's "Friends'" character would be a
natural for a potential spin-off series. The idea appeals to the actor, who is
planning on marrying his longtime girlfriend Melissa McKnight in the near
future.
"If it was done correctly and the idea was right, and I trusted the writers and
the people running the show, the show runners, absolutely I would consider it,"
says LeBlanc. "It allows me to have dinner with my family every night, it allows
me to sleep in my own bed every night, I can see my dogs, I can drive my own
car. You have some semblance of a real life."
"I would say I would seriously consider it, a sitcom schedule is pretty nice."
(14 ottobre 2002 - ZAP2IT.COM)
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