Friends Thru A Lens: Joey's Acting Career with Jessie Brown Findlay

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Sentimental Garbage
Host: Caroline O'Donoghue
Guest: Jessie Brown Findlay
Episode: Friends Thru A Lens: Joey's Acting Career
Date: December 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Sentimental Garbage dives into Friends character Joey Tribbiani’s acting career—its fiction and resonance with real-life acting, as explored by host Caroline O’Donoghue and acclaimed actor Jessie Brown Findlay. Through playful banter and sharp self-reflection, Caroline and Jessie illuminate the realities behind artistic careers, the strange overlap between actor and character, and what Friends got heartbreakingly, and hilariously, right about creative work, luck, and friendship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Actors: Gainfully Unemployed, Endlessly Adaptable

• Jessie describes the "feast and famine" of artistic life:
  • “If you only do that, you will go completely insane. And also, it’s sort of, it’s just I want to be busy… it’s a little bit scary.” (01:48)
• Both Joey and Jessie share traits beyond acting—Joey’s sandwich and carpentry hobbies, Jessie’s painting, knitting, and cooking to fill creative and existential downtime (01:30–02:31).
• Caroline draws a parallel between the odd-job aspect of being an actor and the realism this brings to Friends’ depiction of underemployed, hustling twenty-somethings (02:41–03:43).

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2. The Unique Comic Function of Joey as an On-Screen Actor

• Joey’s profession allows sitcom storytelling flexibility:
  • “The great thing about one of the characters being an actor… you’ve always got someone to knock on the door…and during the day it's like, nothing. What do you want to do?” (03:59–04:28)
• Jessie reflects on the authenticity and support dynamics between the Friends—successful friends supporting the “gainfully unemployed” (03:18–04:28).

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3. Luck, Serendipity, and Entry into Acting

• Real-life stories echo Joey’s whimsical entrance into showbiz:
  • Matt LeBlanc’s origin: couch-surfing, a chance meeting with a girl, becoming an actor almost by accident (08:50–09:41).
  • Jessie’s own story: modeling friends dragged her into a casting, which eventually led to a Tim Burton audition and representation (09:54–11:27).
  • “It’s so random. I adore that… Sometimes people ask me how you get into the industry. I’m like, oh God, don’t ask me.” – Jessie (09:41)

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4. Shaping Character Through Actor—And Vice Versa

• Caroline notes how 10 seasons of Friends allowed real-life Matt LeBlanc to shape Joey, and vice-versa, blending their stories (08:08–08:50).
• Jessie observes: “What I find so funny about Joey is that he doesn’t seem to know anything about his craft at all... his reference points are The Shining, Jack Nicholson, Taxi Driver..." (07:39)
• Caroline: “It’s very boyish. It’s very, ‘I saw Scarface, now I want to be the guy in Scarface. I’m Italian, he’s Italian. Let’s do it.’” (07:57)

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5. Typecasting, Fame, and Being Defined by a Role

• Jessie discusses being “stitched into the culture” as Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey, paralleling Joey’s indelible association with Dr. Drake Ramoray (26:16–26:33).
• They reflect on the power of iconic roles and the reality that the public may forever identify you with them, regardless of subsequent career choices (26:20–26:33).

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6. Episodes as Case Studies: Joey’s Career Milestones

a. Dr. Drake Ramoray—The Soap Opera Peak

• “We feel and know Dr. Drake Ramoray so well, who is like a fake character played by a fake character on a show.” (28:13)
• World-building (Caroline): despite only six episodes, the legend persists because everyone around Joey enables the fantasy (28:14–28:41).

b. Theatre Lows—Freud! and Boxing Day

• “I was saying there’s this moment where the woman on the couch… does a curtain call from the couch... I love it so much!” – Jessie on the Freud! theatre episode (29:35)
• “Do you remember the plot of the play Boxing Day?” leads to laughter about a melodramatic play ending with a spaceship and ageless love (59:12–61:18).

c. The Mac and Cheese & Las Vegas Flop

• Joey’s experience with an ill-fated Hollywood movie is “heartbreaking… you have to keep being happy for your friend as their house of straw is on fire.” (65:04–66:06)
• The cyclical nature of lucky breaks and public decline; Joey’s refusal to leave Vegas “just in case” echoes creative FOMO—holding out for miracles (67:09–69:09).

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7. Iconic Gags and Real Acting Insights

• “Smell the Fart Acting” – the legendary #1 acting tip memorably explored:
  • “If you forget your lines, you sort of lift your face to the air as if you’re trying to smell a fart…”
  • Jessie: “I had this very recently on set… I’m doing the thing from Friends, my smelling the fart acting…” (43:45–45:15)

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8. Money, Status & Creative Insecurity

• Both discuss the urge, post-success, to spend money in ways that prove legitimacy (six-foot porcelain dogs, Burberry wardrobes, impractical shoes):
  • “I remember like realizing, I was like, oh, I looked in my wardrobe and thought, well, there it is, my obsession with vintage clothing. There’s the like nowhere near like a deposit or anything like that.” – Jessie (37:41–38:06)
• Caroline: “With acting and writing… they’re very similar in the sense that they are jobs that everybody thinks they can do… but very few people get to do.” (34:43)

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9. Professional Humiliation and Resilience

• “Creative careers are just a beautiful life embroidered with tiny humiliations every single day.” – Caroline (53:20)
• Both agree artists must be “slightly obsessed with failure” and accept constant change and loss.
• “If you’re doing the same thing over and over again... then you’re a printer. You’re literally an HP printer.” – Jessie (54:14)
• Self-tapes and memorable auditions: “Sometimes just being memorable is enough.” (58:51)

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10. Friends and Chosen Family

• Joey’s friendships with Chandler & co are “his greatest role of his life is how good a friend he is.” – Jessie (18:52)
• The show’s core emotional truth: even as Joey’s creative fortunes rise and fall, his friends anchor him—and that’s the universal, sentimental core (41:05–42:09).

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11. Television’s Power, Comfort, and Legacy

• Discussion on why sitcoms like Friends endure:
  • “Some of the most influential parts of how we are… sometimes can be influenced by a sitcom, by something being allowed to be funny… by the sake of joy. That’s so rare.” – Jessie (78:39–80:14)
• “It holds you in a new way because you’re not who you were at like 11. But also somehow holds you, the 11 year old in your… and that you could have all of that in one thing. That’s so rare.” – Jessie (79:31)
• Nostalgia for communal TV viewing, cultural shorthand, and collective comfort (“It won’t make you a worse person.” – Caroline, 80:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I was just like, why not? I think so many odd jobs that it made sense… and then Tim Burton’s there and I’m auditioning for Alice in Wonderland.” – Jessie [10:41–11:27]
• “What I love about Joey is that he doesn’t seem to know anything about his craft at all.” – Jessie [07:39]
• “Joey Tribbiani’s greatest role of his life is how good a friend he is.” – Jessie [18:52]
• “Comedy is one of those things that I think it’s like in your bones or not. I would describe myself as accidentally funny.” – Jessie [21:58]
• “If you’re an actor who has new and different friends every year… it’s absolutely terrifying.” – Jessie [41:41]
• “Feast and famine of being an artist of any kind is quite poignant.” – Jessie [03:43]
• “Creative careers are just a beautiful life embroidered with tiny humiliations every single day.” – Caroline [53:20]
• “Life is long. Rewatch Friends.” – Jessie [80:31]

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Key Timestamps

• Entering acting by accident: 08:08–11:32
• Joey's relationship to the craft: 07:39–08:03
• Dr. Drake Ramoray’s legacy: 26:49–28:41
• Early theatre embarrassment: 29:35–30:27
• Material signifiers of ‘success’: 32:25–38:16
• Smell the Fart Acting explained: 43:45–45:27
• Las Vegas movie flop & creative resilience: 65:04–71:04
• Friends as chosen family: 41:00–42:09
• Sitcoms as cultural comfort food: 78:04–80:14
• Final words – Life is long. Rewatch Friends: 80:31

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Tone and Style

Light, witty, and vulnerable with emotionally sharp observations. Both Caroline and Jessie intertwine personal anecdotes and self-deprecating humor, matching their love of “feeling the most.” Their banter is pragmatic yet deeply sentimental—living up to the podcast’s name.

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For Listeners New to the Episode

This episode is a rich, funny, and occasionally poignant celebration of the creative oddities and emotional realness behind Friends. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding not only of Joey Tribbiani’s trajectory, but also the real-world highs and lows of an artist’s life: the randomness of opportunity, the joy of camaraderie, the inevitability of public humiliation, and the peculiar treasures of twenty-something unemployment.

You’ll also pick up a few acting tips ("smell the fart") and discover why no six-foot porcelain dog is ever enough to quiet the insecurity of a gainfully unemployed creative.

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Best enjoyed with a sandwich.

Transcript

[Jessie]

Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go? Thank you so much.

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[Caroline]

Hello and welcome to Friends Through a Lens, the podcast where I talk to my real life friends about the show Friends Through a Lens of their choosing. My name is Caroline and what kind of actor can say, mmm, noodle soup? And joining me is the star of the now cancelled Mac and Cheese, it's Jessica Brown Finley.

[Jessie]

Hello.

[Momentous Ad]

Hello.

[Caroline]

I've said that an intro so many times now and every time I laugh and the other person laughs as well. I just love saying those words.

[Jessie]

I was trying to caution. I was like, don't ruin the intro. Don't immediately just like fuck it all up.

[Caroline]

I love it. You're one of my first friends who's, come on. Who shares a job with one of the friends.

And that friend is Joey Tribbiani.

[Jessie]

And wow, our lives are so intertwined.

[Caroline]

So intertwined. You are into amateur carpentry and sandwiches.

[Jessie]

Absolutely.

[Caroline]

You actually are. You're an actor of much renown. Many people will have seen you in many things. I'm sure you can drag up IMDb I won't embarrass you on the podcast now, but you are someone who has. You have that in common. But you are like, you love a hobby during the day. You love.

[Jessie]

I do. I think as an actor, if you only do that, you will go completely insane. And also, it's sort of, it's just I want to be busy. I want to fill my time. I like some things I pick up and I do for a little bit the carpentry, like my knitting. Oh my God, I'm still terrible at knitting. I can make very, very long scarves because I get distracted while I'm watching a film and then I realize, oh, God, it's like eight foot long or things that I don't get good at or like, don't sort of carry on. But then other stuff that I do all the time, like I'll paint a lot, I cook all the time. Just because when you're, quote, unemployed, it's a little bit scary.

[Caroline]

People talk.

[Jessie]

So you just kind of, you're like, what? Okay, three course meal then three course meal for four people, of which there are only two. But we will consume the whole thing. So it's fine.

[Caroline]

A painting of everyone I've ever met nude. People talk about being gainfully employed. They don't talk about being gainfully unemployed, which is essentially what being an actor is. So much of the time you wait on jobs for so long and then it's just. Then you work madly, as I know you are at the moment. But I think for the privileges of a sitcom, having a character who is an actor is very helpful for that. And, like, there's always this schism in Friends. And this is like in a legendary early episode. Remember the one about. I think it's called the one with four eggplants and something or whatever.

[Jessie]

Yeah. Oh, when they go to the gig. Yes.

[Caroline]

They go to Hootie and the Blowfish. Half of them make money because Chandler has a fancy office job, Monica's got a brand new job and Ross is a professor. He's a palaeontologist. So they're all gainfully employed and the other three are gainfully unemployed or underemployed because Joey's an actor, Phoebe's a massage therapist and Rachel's a waitress. And I refer to the episode because it's one of those brilliant. Very rarely seen elsewhere in culture and.

[Jessie]

Not really talked about. And often within friendship groups, just everyone's like, let's not get specific, but can we find something that we can all do? And there's the feast and famine of being an artist of any kind is quite poignant.

[Caroline]

Right?

[Jessie]

You're either. You're working like, oh, my God, when you're younger, you're like, yay, let's buy. I don't know, something, anything. And then you suddenly. And then you're suddenly out of a job. And you realize very, very quickly, you don't know how long that's for. And so instead of going up and down, you just sort of try and find like a happy medium. But I think there's that moment also. The great thing about one of the characters being an actor in the show of Friends is you've always got someone to knock on the door to and be like, hi, Joey, what you up to? And during the day it's like, nothing. What do you want to do? He can be in the coffee shop. It's always realistic that he could be there. And then there are those early moments of Friends where you see them all watch his thing and they're all so excited for him. And then also having to a sort of wiggling scale of trying to either hide how excited they are. About the potential thing he's doing or be as kind as they possibly can to the thing they've done that they think is not very good.

[Caroline]

Right. Cause the story of Joey's acting career, it's like a bubble within a bubble. Right? Because there's the doctor, Drake Ramores and the Mac and cheese and that crappy film he does in Las Vegas that ends up just falling apart, which I'm sure you have loads to stay on. But then there's the bubble out of that, which is like, oh, no. Creative career happens within a vacuum. It happens in and around people who have to support it for sometimes long after that support feels realistic.

[Jessie]

Yeah, definitely. And I think that what I love is that, you know that he's got a mate like Chandler who helps him so he can live in Manhattan and be there.

[Caroline]

And Chandler puts a lot of his build and gets very little credit for it.

[Jessie]

Very little credit for it. But. But so. And, you know, to be that. I mean, there are hints of realism in what happens but just, like, moments like that that you can. And he steps in, you know, sometimes to help, to help out. Like there's an episode where he'll, like, he's a waiter for Monica at the thing mostly to try and boost her, like, credit at work because they all hate her. And then he gets distracted and joins in hating her, which is really brutal.

[Caroline]

Yeah, he goes method.

[Jessie]

Yeah, he goes really meth and joins. Sort of joins the haters. But.

There is that part to. If you love anyone who is an artist, whether it's a friend or a partner, in a way, the wildness of what it is is part of the journey, is part of the job description. My job is as much to go to work, be off book, know what I'm doing and be ready to get, like, really creative and throw myself into very unexpected spaces. As much as it is not completely implode the minute I'm not like, sat there with a schedule to be interested in art outside of a script to be and to take responsibility. As for myself as an artist, like, I love being an artist. It's the best thing. And I say artist rather than actor only because I never really originally planned on being an actor. And so there are so many sort of little spokes to this umbrella that I'm kind of under that I adore and they all influence me. But what I also admire, not maybe admire, but what I find so funny about Joey is that he doesn't seem to know anything about his craft at all.

Like, his, like, reference points are The Shining, Jack Nicholson, like Taxi Driver. Like he's just. It's sort of real, sort of old school Italian, sort of Godfather esque moments and then kind of nothing like. But I adore that.

[Caroline]

It's very boyish. It's very like I saw Scarface. Now I want to be the guy in Scarface. I'm Italian, he's Italian.

[Jessie]

Let's do it. Come on. Where's my award? Where's my job?

[Caroline]

I was listening to lots of interviews with creators and actors in preparing for the season and obviously listening to interviews with Matt LeBlanc. I think it's interesting. I think the joy of a sitcom that goes runs for 10 seasons at like an average of 22 episodes per season is that these characters were invariably shaped by the actors who were playing them. So lots of things that Matt LeBlanc are true about his life are kind of common to the Joey character. Right. And he talks about going in for the audition for Joey and that he saw it was the first time he'd ever been in an audition room where nobody looked like anybody else. Like it was just like a random smattering of hot guys that were age appropriate. Yeah.

[Jessie]

Under 30.

[Caroline]

Under 30. Hot enough to be believably an actor. Yeah, I guess there was a guy like with cow. With a cow cowboy hat on who was doing like a totally different thing. And then he talked about what got him into acting. This is the interviewer. Yeah, that he. It's. It's so crazy to me. So he was visiting a friend in New York for the weekend. He was a amateur carpenter. He is from Massachusetts, Matt LeBlanc. And he was just like, he was working with his in a family business situation. And then he said he was putting up a frames in New England in winter and he was like, this sucks. I'm gonna like bum on my friend's couch for a while in New York, see what he's doing. Meets a pretty girl on the street, starts talking to her. She says, I'm an actor. I'm gonna go see my manager. Do you wanna come? And then he got his manager. That is like the most Joey Tribbiani story. And it really happened to Madeline Black.

[Jessie]

That's so random. I mean, I adore that. Cause like sometimes people ask me and they're like, how do you get into the industry? I'm like, oh God, don't ask me. I mean, I will give you every piece of advice I can possibly throw at you.

[Caroline]

But it was totally random for you as well.

[Jessie]

Totally random. Totally. Sort of really Convoluted and ridicul. Ridiculous. So someone I was at art school with, I sort of knew some girls who were models and. Models. And yeah, basically, you know, they were like, well, we all, you know, one of them was going up for an advert. They were like, well, you don't obviously necessarily have to be a model to be in an advert. And I was like, could afford me anyway. And she was like, why don't you just come in and. And see what they say and you could go on some meetings. Because if you get one. Student loans paid or what, you know, because. Yeah, so advertising money is mad. So I was. I thought, well, that sounds absolutely fantastic, I'll go in. Went in. They also confirmed not a model. And I was like, no, I know, I'm sure. And. Etc. But I was like, well, let me just go in and see.

[Caroline]

And.

[Jessie]

Because I was just like, why not? I think so many odd jobs that it made sense. And then so went on a couple of castings for that. Really enjoyed it. Because they're ridiculous. Ridiculous. The things they ask you to do. Everything's in, like, contrast to the last thing that they said. It's very, very confusing. But I found the whole thing quite hilarious. And then, yeah, a casting director of one of those was assisting a casting director for a film. And then she got me in to read for that and I went back again and again and it turned out to be a film. And I knocked on a door for the last audition and Tim Burton's there and I'm auditioning for Alice in Wonderland. I go in like, full. I got, you know, they put you in, like, the costume and the wig and the whole thing. And I did a screen test, didn't get the job. And then from that got an agent because the casting director said, look, there's.

[Caroline]

This girl, she's got it, she's got it.

[Jessie]

I think she was just like, look, she's got some chutzpah. So just, you know, give her a go. And then. Yeah, and then that's been my job ever since. But I love that he did that and it is very Joey. And that's just. I do. I think there's something so magic about now because I was saying earlier that what I found wild watching episodes of Friends with the lens of thinking actor is that I'd never really made a link between the fact that Joey Tribbiani and I have the same job.

Because of maybe his approach to it. But what really fascinates me and I think maybe fascinated me before I became an actor growing up watching the show and, like, definitely since has always kind of held me in quite a sort of culturally. I just want to know everything about what the process was like for those six actors, for those 10 years, the 10 seasons of how it. What it was like. And performing these shows, sort of getting a script, rehearsing for three days, like filming a whole episode in front of a live audience over sort of six, seven hours and then starting again the next week. This kind of magic balance between it feeling it's tv, but you're kind of performing it as close to theater as TV can get and what that connection must have been like. And I think we've all sat there and watched bloopers when we're feeling like, if you're ever feeling really low, just like, I'm just going to watch them try to make each other laugh, which is so glorious. And then the thought also of, you know, they all went from not knowing each other to being the only six people in the whole world who knew what that experience was like. Even though they've been watched by, like, well, billions of views have been seen of friends and that those characters slowly molded to them. I remember one of the people, maybe one of the producers and writers, saying that they'd seen loads of people for Rachel and that so often what would happen is they'd be great, but the character felt really just kind of cold. And you could just really easily be like, oh, you're so spoiled and annoying. I don't like you. And that Jennifer Aniston just brought this warmth and sort of complete, like, you just love her and you really want her. You adore the fact that she originally starts in this really sort of slightly vapid, unrealistic, like, world and then is forced into what your 20s are really like, which is you're on your own, but we're all gonn as our kind of chosen family. And that that actor was part of that storyline and warmth and that Matt LeBlanc was really, I imagine the Coventry came in because he was right, right.

[Caroline]

They were kind of using every part of the buffalo. And, like, I wonder at what point that story about him meeting a girl, following her down the road, having a chat. He said, I never really got with the girl, but I got the manager kind of thing. And then he did some sort of modeling and commercial work. And then, you know, he was unmarried with children. He was kind of bopping around sitcoms for a long time. And, like, it's so interesting because, like, okay, you didn't meet a pretty girl and follow her down the street. But your. Your entry into this profession isn't that dissimilar in that it's complete luck and kismet and like, having, like having an it factor in a great face at a young age, like, that's. That is. So there's nothing more glamorous than that. No.

[Jessie]

And it being. And it being also, I think now that would. No, I'm not gonna say never happened because that's really pessimistic and I hate pessimism. But there was something about it in the world at the time. What was it, 2007 like, the idea of, like, social media having any influence on who you're gonna cast in something or what that looks like was just nut, like, sort of not part of it. Just like, the only thing social media really had a hold on was the. The magic that was my space. And just people obsessed with music.

[Caroline]

Yeah. That wasn't having any impact on casting.

[Jessie]

Decisions, though, at all. And so, like, in that way, I feel like, so grateful and happy that it happened that I was that age then.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

And people went, okay, and if it doesn't work out, we have to be like, no, bye after a while. But why not let someone try and see if they've got something?

[Caroline]

But what's so interesting, though, is that you. You. I mean, you. Both you and Matt LeBlanc and by extension Matt LeBlanc's shadow self, which is Joey Tribbiani.

[Jessie]

Yes.

[Caroline]

Had this entry into the business that was kind of based on right place, right time. It's like so 1950s, so MGM, so Lana Turner having a milkshake. But, like, you obviously have molded your life and your profession around like. But I'm an artist and I'm going to work on not just my craft within the performance that I do every night on stage or in front of the camera, but I'm going to like, feed the sou, then feeds the art. I'm going to like, observe, you know, visual art and. And paint and everything that you do. And like, I like that you chose one lane and then Joey Tribbiani chooses the other, which is that, like, I'm gonna spend my time hanging out, eating sandwiches, like, not really feeding the art. And it just, like, it's so. It's so fun. And the more I thought, don't get.

[Jessie]

Me wrong, I do eat a lot of sandwiches.

Which I like to put into the box of research.

[Caroline]

And it is the thing I want to ask you about that I was really thinking about today because Joey and Matt Leblanc as a pair. We'll talk about his roles in just a minute. But they went on a journey together through to Joey, the spin off show.

[Jessie]

Yes. Which I've never seen.

[Caroline]

Have you seen a couple of episodes?

[Momentous Ad]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

But then after, you know, it was sort of. It's this great punchline in all of. Maybe it's worth revisiting for this podcast because it is such a piece of cultural trash that people are so cruel about. And I would imagine if I went back to it and took it out of the context of comparing it to the next Friends or it being the follow on from Friends, I'm sure it has perfectly good legs as a sitcom show or whatever. So his relationship, all of the friends, all six of them have to have these lifelong relationships with these characters, but Joey specifically and Matt LeBlanc, because they are kind of these interchangeable things. Because Joey is an actor and Matt LeBlanc is an actor.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

So it's like we go into Joey, Joey fails. And then many years later, we have episodes where Matt LeBlanc plays himself and where I'm sure you've seen it, I mean, where Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Gregg, they play these British writers who are disgusted at the idea of Joey Tribbiani, Matt LeBlanc, being in their sensitive show that, you know, was supposed to be the small little lovely, you know, romance in a boarding school or whatever. And they like can't believe it. And they have to almost be convinced themselves, even though they're these clever people who understand television, that Joey Tribbiani and Matt LeBlanc aren't the same thing?

[Jessie]

Yes.

[Caroline]

So I guess my question to you is that like the, the credit of having an actor play an actor in a long running TV show is that he's always around, he always has a fun storyline, he's great for stories or whatever. But is the downside of that that we, we know that Joey Tribbiani is, quote unquote, a bad actor?

[Jessie]

Yes.

[Caroline]

Therefore, do we extend that same discredit to Matt LeBlanc?

[Jessie]

You know, it's crazy. I think, honestly, within that context or that at least it worked for that storyline. Right. That sort of the thing that people might decide quickly is that, oh, he's a bad actor. Cause he could never get jobs as an actor in Friends, but he is. I was saying the other day that I just think his, Joey Tribbiani's greatest role of his life is how good a friend he is. I mean, he fucks up a lot and. But he never really. He doesn't mean to. And he's so loving, and I just think he'll be, like, the most amazing. Like, he sort of loves Emma, and I'm sure he'll, like, go and visit the twins. Loads out in, like, wherever it is, like Connecticut, wherever they're moving to. And his, you know, he's mush and, you know, he kind of gives himself the.

Is sort of, like, walks around in this sort of, you know, I'm a macho man, but really just, you know, complete, like, mushfiz friends and just adores them.

I'm very hungry all the time, but I. It's. It's so funny that we imagine him on any level to be a bad actor, because the only way you could portray being that terrible and ridiculous is by knowing. Is by being able to, I guess. What am I trying to say? Like, hit it. Hit the wrong notes. You know.

Like when. When a brilliant singer for a comedy sketch can, like, hit wrong notes because they know what.

[Caroline]

Sabrina Carpenter did it.

[Jessie]

Yeah. They know what sounds like what sounds great. And so they know how the smallest tweak that suddenly makes something seem so. From effortless to, oh, my God, God, that's awful. Please stop doing it. And that's. That takes a lot of effort. And it also takes, I think, an ego. I think there are a lot of actors out there who would sort of want their character to sort of maybe, maybe still be quietly brilliant, you know, like, just in case anyone's watching, like, oh, God, he's really amazing. Like, sort of work with it. I've worked with actors before who, like, on. On paper, their character is. You know, they're there for that role, and it is. It's that flav. And they sort of want to make them maybe a bit softer, maybe a bit nicer or maybe. Maybe he doesn't cheat with, like, 10 people. Maybe it's just, like, one. And it was a mistake and he sort of fell into her. And you're like, guys, come on, he's an asshole. Just play the role. And, like, you have to have. You have to be gracious enough to not have a mad ego, to let yourself do that, to be on screen, terrible at the job description you are on stage or on the. Being brilliant at. That's such a mad balance, though. I couldn't do that.

[Caroline]

And I don't think anyone gave him credit for that either. He was nominated a lot, but never won an Emmy or anything. He never really won any major award as Joey.

[Jessie]

Every single one of them should have won something, but only because One wrong step and I just don't know if we'd have the show and we'd be sitting here talking about it. But also, what a joy to have something that keeps going, that people adore, that allows you to really just do your job and have so much fun. Comedy is one of those things that I think it's like in your bones or not. I would describe myself as accidentally funny. But like, in terms. But in terms of making a line on the page and making it inherently funny. Is it like a rhythmic thing? Is a thing. I mean, I'll give it a damn good go. But someone like Matthew Perry, for example, his entire spirit was. I have to. To get this laugh and I'm going to do it. And not entire spirit, but his energy as an actor. We just always found it. And I just think that's. They all can do that. It's really amazing. And none of it's the same flavor.

[Caroline]

And like, yeah, each of them has their own kind of musicality when it comes to how they deliver dialogue. Like you could listen to their dialogue being hummed through a wall and know who was saying it in what way.

[Jessie]

100%. Do you know what I remembered I had. But when I was maybe it was about 13. Cause I got a CD player when I was 13. It was a huge gap, huge moment anyway. And I had a CD that was some of the music from Friends. And then some of the tracks were just sections from the episode. Just like funny bits. One of them is the Joey Tribbiani moment of playing someone's, who is it? Whose bum is he playing?

[Caroline]

He's like Al Pacino's butt.

[Jessie]

And then with Chandler saying like, oh, you know, I can't wait for the grand opening.

[Caroline]

So.

[Jessie]

And it's so interesting that you say about sort of the rhythm and the tone of their lines because I would listen to it and the rhythm when I'm watching it, I know exactly when it comes in because there is this sort of pitter patter, like back and forth that they can achieve. And I just think it's so cool. But I had it as a cd and I thought. I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world to own at the time.

[Caroline]

That is very cool.

[Jessie]

So it was. I mean, what a world. It's so far away from now. I guess it's kind of like saving reels or something. Yeah, but just be like, now I'm gonna listen to like bits of Friends on my walk to school.

Did I talk too much? Can I just let it go? I Wish I would stop thinking so much.

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[Caroline]

I want to talk about. Okay. Do you want to start with Dr. Drake Remore?

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Because it is his big role.

[Jessie]

It is.

[Caroline]

And I, and I know you also, you've have, you've had so many roles across your life, but you've also had some that like, I've become very iconic and have become that thing where people will come up to you in the.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

In the street. Or you're like, you will, you'll be Lady Sybil till you die.

[Jessie]

I will.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Like I have to like remind myself when I'm around you not to bring it up because I just think it's so funny and cool. Cool that you're like sewn into the culture in this like a reparable way. It's like so cool.

[Jessie]

So little and young. You tiny. You're tiny. And no idea what I was doing.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Let's talk about like Dr. Drake or Moray, which I believe he gets in season two. There's a couple of theater stuff before that, which we'll get back to. But it's his. It is his, like, big break, official.

[Jessie]

And he starts, am I right? Thinking, Remembering that he gets this small part on it or like, has to audition and then. But then it becomes a bigger role and it's just. It blows his fricking mind. As it would, like, I'm on, you know, Days of Our Lives, which side note, Jennifer Aniston's dad passed on. I thought it was a make believe show. Like, what do I know? And he has this moment of thinking, oh, well, I'm done then. Like, this is me for the rest of my life. And I think that this level, this, like, everyone knows who I am. And he. Which, like, let's face it, he loves.

[Caroline]

Right? Loves it, but like, loves in like an innocent way.

[Jessie]

Yes, yes.

[Caroline]

Like, we have this whole kind of run of episodes where it is like Joey Getz, Dr. Nick Gamora. We see actually very little of it. And I do this talk on world building that I include. I literally put up a slide and it says it has a picture of Joey pointing at the TV while he's being Mr. Dr. Jake memoray. And I said, who's this? And everyone says, Joey Tribbiani. And I say, and who's this? And I say, everyone says, Dr. Drake Amore. And then I say, do you know Dr. Drake Ramori only appeared in six episodes of the show Friends? And the reason I always pointed out during world building classes with creative fiction is that to me, excellent world building means that you imagine more than is actually there. And so we understand.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

We Feel and know Dr. Drake or Moray so well, who is like a fake character played by a fake character on a show. And like, because it's just like, it's so, so. And again with world building, it's like it's people recognizing him throughout the run of the show. It's like him talking about residuals. It's him talking about the money that he's getting from it and what he's gonna buy with it. And like talking about the Soap Opera Digest, talking about Soap Opera awards, You know what I mean? Going back to Days of Our Lives in the end, like.

[Jessie]

Yeah. And then in a flashback episode.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jessie]

Where they're like, oh, what could have happened? Or did any of you ever hook up with anyone? There maybes. And then there was this version where Rachel is a huge sort of Days of Our Lives fan and I can't believe she's meeting Dr. Ramore, which is.

[Caroline]

So the world where if she had married Barry and she'd been housewife, and she just watched TV all day.

[Jessie]

Watched TV all day and became obsessed and was in love with Joey. Whereas in real life, she's like, love Joey, baby. I love it. Which I love. It's so clever that they can do that. That. That was achieved within sort of. What were they, like, 27 minutes, 27 EPS of 10 series. That it's, like, all woven in there. But, like, when he gets this job, it's huge. Because I think up until that moment, we've seen some very funny, embarrassing theater.

[Caroline]

Yes. Freud, Freud, Freud, Freud.

[Jessie]

One of which is just genuinely. And I was saying this. There's this moment where the woman on the couch, you see the beginning and it, like, goes into a music.

[Caroline]

All you want is. But you envy the Shang. And then.

[Jessie]

And they're all just sat there going, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And then at the end for the curtain call, she's just still on the couch, and she does the curtain call from the couch. She just moves her arms, like, as if to, like, curtsy. And I don't know why I love it so much, because I only really noticed it when I was looking through it for this research. And I thought, what role did that woman have that she never got up? And I was thinking, oh, that would be a. Like, I'd sort of. I dread that. I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna have to sit down for, like, an hour and a half. I hope it wasn't an hour and a half. I hope that play was, you know, a nice.

[Caroline]

But you can so see the sort of off Broadway sort of buzz about it being like. And the thing is, she never gets up.

[Jessie]

And it's a musical, what you've always wanted.

[Caroline]

And then. So they're a musical where one of the characters doesn't do anything.

[Jessie]

There's these things where he doesn't make it on time and missing auditions and all this stuff. So when this, like, role comes through and he gets it and he's on TV and he's like, his nan is watching. And, like, I remember when I. When I. When I got Downton, it was just so mad to me. It was my second job, right? And I'm working with Maggie freaking Smith.

[Caroline]

Crazy.

[Jessie]

Who I just was obsessed with. Like, obviously, yeah. Everyone's so experienced.

[Caroline]

And you're like, what, 23?

[Jessie]

Yeah, yeah. 22 when I got the job. 23 when it came out. And I remember I sat with my parents and my nan and my granddad and a Couple of my best mates from school, and this is something I have and never will do again, sit down and go, let's watch my work. Because it was a collaborative thing. There were so many people in it. And I couldn't fricking believe that because I thought, oh, I'll make a film and then I'll go back to art school. And then that didn't seem to be happening. And I grew up on period dramas, right, like any sane human. And I, like a millennial woman just being, like, pretty dressed.

[Caroline]

And I.

[Jessie]

And I. And I, you know, just sat and watched his thing. So when you see him watch it with his gran and then it turns out that, like, oh, they've cut him out. Oh, that's maybe a different show, but he's been cut out or something. But they're just like. There are very few moments like that where you sit with the people that you love and you trust completely that they love you, even if something is awful. And that you can all sort of gather round the telly or go to the cinema and watch something and be giddy about the fact that you get to do the thing. And as an artist, you don't often get to do the thing. And it is always a kind of miracle. And seeing him sort of like watching so proudly and then he loses his head and moves out the apartment, which.

[Caroline]

Is like, yes, I'm dying to talk to you about this trajectory of that moment where an actor, after a long time of struggle, gets a lot of money and has no idea what to do with it, and buys large porcelain dogs.

[Jessie]

I mean, story of my life.

[Caroline]

I know. And a little. A little window with rain that goes through it. Just like, his taste is so funny, the shit he buy. It must. So many of the people on that show who dressed that show, like, if you think about it, like, all the things they would be buying for him. They all have been working with actors forever, so that must be based on, like, flats they've been in.

[Jessie]

It's based on things like that. But also because of kind of what we were saying earlier of, like, Joey having that this sort of seemingly at least portrayed on the show, quite a sort of narrow view of what being an actor is. And so not necessarily having his own sense of style or artistry and it being just, oh, I know how he gets loads of stuff. He goes into a shop and then the salesperson just sort of talks him into going like, well, you know, people who've. We've had someone in here from, you know, insert like. Like, big Film or TV show or something, who brought this? And then he goes, okay, well, I'm an actor who's just got a show, so I'll get 10. And then, you know, give me a ray machine window. And just sort of someone just gonna. Not knowing what to do with it, but wanting to show.

[Caroline]

It's just status and security, isn't it?

[Jessie]

Yeah. And so there's a mixture of that and then also just desperately wanting maybe to show people around you that like, you're like, I'm okay, I know I'm doing the thing because like, sometimes I find this a lot. Even now, like, sometimes people go, oh, you're an actor. Oh, how is that? And I'm like, you know what? It's a bit mad. And like, yeah, like, sure, it's like still a bit funky, but it's all right. And then I'm like, oh, good for you.

[Caroline]

It's good for you.

[Jessie]

And I'm sometimes like. And so I can imagine him going, well, look, it's going very well. Look at my 9 foot tall porcelain rabbit.

[Caroline]

And my.

[Jessie]

Because this sort of idea of. And you do see it sometimes with like, you, you know, you know someone and then suddenly they're, you know, next time you see them, everything they're wearing is Burberry or something, you know, and whatever. And it's kind of almost this like, armoring up to go, no, no, no. I'm like, I'm an artist, but I'm making money for my art.

[Caroline]

It's so true. I mean, it's true of every artistic profession. I've definitely had moments like that. And I think with acting and writing, they're very similar in the sense that there are jobs that everybody thinks they can do on some level. Very few people get to do.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And also that, like, it's the prec. And it's the thing. Exactly. That you said at the top of the podcast, which is you're broke and you simply don't know for how long. You don't know if this, like, you know, 200 quid in your bank account is to last you for three weeks or three months. You know, it's in. It's that same thing. I've had these moments where I wanted to reassure everyone that I had somehow transcended the moment of struggle.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And I remember saying something on my Instagram stories once because, like, someone had sent me a dress and. And I said something to the. I was so excited I got to wear it to this like, fancy event. And I said something to the effect of this is one of my favorite designers on the story, on the instant story. And my sister texted me immediately saying, one of my favorite designers.

Being like, as if you have favorite designers. You don't. You absolute cretin.

[Jessie]

You're like, yeah, I know, but this one I've like, I've heard a lot.

[Caroline]

I've heard of.

[Jessie]

I'm like, I'm gonna say it's amazing.

[Caroline]

It was so Joey and his six foot porcelain dog.

[Jessie]

Or even like live out your little Cinderella moments. I remember once.

[Caroline]

You're so like, fuck you in those moments.

[Jessie]

I know. I remember once somewhere I knew someone, I knew an actor and they'd been like, so they were going to like a premiere, so they were gonna wear a suit. And so you're lent a suit by someone. I think it was like a Savaro sitch. And obviously that their whole thing is you will wear a suit like it's made for you. So it was tweaked and altered for this person. And as such, after they got to keep it, I thought, oh, is that how it works? If you get to borrow something, do you get to keep it? Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God. Oh my God, no.

[Jessie]

And then when it happened to me, they're like, here it is. And I was like, oh, my word. And then they were like, okay, so we're picking up tomorrow at 3. It was like, oh, what?

[Caroline]

I was like, no.

[Jessie]

And one of them so much, I loved so much that. And also I was single at the time and I couldn't get it off at the end of the night because it just turns out dresses are made to have like crew like do up and down in. And it was so expensive, I didn't know what to do with it. So I like lay on top of my bed and waited for my alarm to go. Off to go to work the next day. Got up, took my little bag with me with a change of clothes and then just came in going, can someone help me out with this, please? Because I'm really, really worried I'm gonna ruin it and they're gonna have to pay for it. And I don't know how I'm gonna pay for it.

[Caroline]

Showed up to work like that.

[Jessie]

So funny, like Jane Fonda, but ridiculous. But I couldn't believe you didn't get to keep it. And that was really, really heartbreaking. But it's just. Yeah. So his little clothes. I do remember there being one moment though where I got a job and I realized I was like, oh, I might. Honestly, I've consumed too Much sex in the city. Because I was. I thought, okay, well, you know, you buy shoes.

[Caroline]

Oh, yes. Oh my God. I remember thinking I had to buy shoes as well.

[Jessie]

I bought shoes and then I don't even like shoes. How am I ever gonna save up for anything? And then you. I'm like, oh, I'll sell them off. And then you realize they sell for like nothing because they're shoes that you've worn a billion times and they're like scabby and odd. But I remember like realizing I was like, oh, I looked in my wardrobe and thought, well, there it is, my obsession with vintage clothing. There's the like nowhere near like a deposit or anything like that. It's not one of those.

[Caroline]

And then you remember there's my holiday.

[Jessie]

To Cornwall that I can't go on because it's in my wardrobe.

[Caroline]

Then you remember that you're already married and that there's no like hedge fund coming around the bend to save me.

[Jessie]

There's no one to save me. It's me. And that's stupid because it's a self.

[Caroline]

Employed person that's marrying another self employed actor. Like, what are we doing? Ridiculous.

[Jessie]

Stupid.

[Caroline]

So he completely runs away with themselves. He briefly moves out.

[Jessie]

Oh, bless him.

[Caroline]

I think it's so interesting that like in the run of Friends, one of the most meaningful in terms of like dramatic schisms in terms of people breaking up and getting back together is Joey and John. It is like, it happens quite a lot. Like when they have like a big issue with them, it is played very dramatically.

[Jessie]

I know. I love it.

[Caroline]

For some reason, the bracelet episode really lives Ren free in my head that like when Chandler's making fun of the.

[Jessie]

Bracelet that Joey got him, he just thinks he's like. And also it's Joey's. Joey's just trying to say like, you know, you've always supported me and I want to say thanks. And this is, you know, I think you're like. It's not even like he thought he'd like it. It's just this thing of going, this is how much I love you. Look, it's really shiny.

[Caroline]

Best bud.

[Jessie]

And we're best buds and like, you know, we can be best friends. And what I think really speak what's kind of amazing about that relationship and about the fact that then he does move back in and it's not just because he gets killed off in a.

[Caroline]

Which I wanna talk to you about.

[Jessie]

Which we should definitely talk about. But also that like sometimes being an artist, being an actor and I was talking about this earlier when we were just like sitting down and catching up. I think it's very strange because, because you work around a lot of people all day when you're at work in like various degrees. Whether it's like going day in, day out and doing a play or working in film and TV where just like so many moving parts to make sort of one little scene kind of happen. It can sometimes weirdly be incredibly lonely and you realize that you're sort of on and around people all the time. But then it's sort of everything stops, stops. You get in the car and you go home and then sort of no one is around because often you're free at times of the day where no one else is about. And then your busy times, like you're getting up before anyone else is awake. You're getting, you're going to work at 4:30 in the morning and then you get back at sort of 8:39. So you've missed, oh, grabbing a beer with some friends maybe or whatever. And then like when you are free, everyone's mate, it's Tuesday afternoon, I'm busy, I'm not available to hang. Or at least that happens, you know, in your early 20s people are about still. And then suddenly everyone has proper jobs and you realize, oh no, I'm really. My life is really strange. And so having that kind of relationship and the fact that it's a beautiful male friendship.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

And I know like there are funky bits and like, right, we all know.

[Caroline]

About the gay panic and we all know it's terrible for them, but there.

[Jessie]

Is a part to it. There's like a little compilation thing that I think they show in an episode all the time of all the times that they hug and that they're like sort of really close to each other. And I think if you have that experience as an artist, like with a best friend or someone that no matter what your job looks like. And what I love about Joey's trajectory is that the friends he has never falter. Because I honestly think if you're an actor who has new and different friends every year and they just, the friends get more and more famous and everyone else that you used to know has just disappeared.

[Caroline]

And I'm sure you've known and worked.

[Jessie]

With people like that, it's absolutely terrifying. And then you just realize that, oh, I was just like a little head to stand on to get to somewhere else. But for Joey, he has his friends that are sort of unwaveringly loving even though he's ridiculous as we all are. I think that's the best thing as an artist if you have a group of friends that no matter, like meet people and become friends with new people and be open to that always. But like, you gotta have some friends who know you forever.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

And who, like, I've even got mates, my mates from school who even just the fact that I've like, I've gone by Jesse for forever now just with my friends and they're just like, nah, it's Jess. Like, I met you when you were 11, it's Jess. We decided because you didn't like Jessica, so you got given Jess. That's your name, your name is Jess. And. And sort of just having this sort of bullshit detector thing of just always knowing you for something else and that you were never that when they met you. And I think it's so important.

[Caroline]

I think there is a very true moment in that where like, I think whenever anyone has that first moment of flare up or any kind of success, they. And I think it actually, it's obviously, it's silly. He buys a six foot porcelain dog. It's hilarious. It's so good.

[Jessie]

I love as well that that one makes it through all the way. I know it's what he keeps.

[Caroline]

It's there right at the end.

[Jessie]

And then like Courtney Cox is like, you know, if that thing fell off the back of the truck, it wouldn't be the worst thing.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, everyone has that moment where they like, oh, maybe I am being called up to the big leagues. Maybe I am the kind of person who has a facialist or whatever and then they're like, no, no, you test it for a minute. I think anyone who has had any kind of moment like that where they're like, maybe I'm the kind of person who does that. And then you test for a minute and you're like, no, deeply unpleasant. Not nice, not nice.

[Jessie]

But like, let's just occasionally book a facial and that will be lovely. But then just not have to live in the world where that becomes my thing. My thing. Or where it takes over what you were doing. Oh, Joey, I love him so much.

[Caroline]

While we're on, Dr. Drake Remoray, I want to talk about two things on this first sort of flush of his, because he comes back again towards the end of the show, first of all is smell the fart acting. Now this is, I think for the.

[Jessie]

General public, it's, sorry to God, I use this all the time.

[Caroline]

But this is what people know about acting. If people know one thing One skill or trick about acting, it is smell the fart acting, which is if you forget your lines, you sort of like lift your face to the air as if you're trying to smell a fart and then you do a long pause and then continue the line. Is there truth in this?

[Jessie]

You know what's really funny is I. Oh, God. I had this very recently on set. Sometimes with accent work, if you're doing an accent, it's so specific to who you're playing, the period of which you're playing a role in, and where someone is from very, very specifically so you can know a word. But there are different ways in which we say something. So and I, we're speaking the same language and yet, like, there are different ways in which we say words. And I had this moment of I'd learned a line with a certain way of saying a word and in fact from where my character is, they would pronounce it differently. And every time I got to this word I went, oh, God, is it.

[Caroline]

That one or that one?

[Jessie]

That one or that one? And then I just have this moment of thinking and it felt like it was lasting forever. And I was like. And I just. With a co star of mine, this amazing woman I'm working with, I'm doing the thing from Friends, my smelling fart, smelling fart acting going, no, it's that one. Say it that way, say it that way. And then I just had to say like, guys, no, no, no, that's really awful. Can I go back and do it again? I know, I know what to say now. I know the way I've the words I can't remember. I've honestly mentally blocked it up.

[Caroline]

Okay, it does sound like a traumatic day at work.

[Jessie]

It's just like one of those days where he was like, how was it? We're like, not good, not good. If you're going to work and accidentally doing things that Joey Tribbiani does at work, it's not a great day at work.

[Caroline]

It's not.

[Jessie]

It's not a great day at work.

[Caroline]

I should be better at my job by now. But anyway, and tell me about being killed off, because what happens, what happens to Drake Ramori? What happens to Joey Giovanni is that he gets. Again, it's during his segment of Getting Too Big for his Boots, he gives an interview to Soap Opera Digest and.

[Jessie]

He says he's so sassy about the writers.

[Caroline]

He says sometimes he writes his own lines.

[Jessie]

Oh, my God, Joey.

[Caroline]

No, there's that moment on screen when, like, he knows he's about to get killed off, and he just won't walk into the elevator shaft. He's like, does anybody else want the elevator?

[Jessie]

No, no, they just.

[Caroline]

They just asked for you.

[Jessie]

They just said you. I don't think I know anyone who has gone through a script to learn their lines or to see what the next episode holds.

[Caroline]

Right.

[Jessie]

As an actor and then gone. I die, right?

[Caroline]

You're warned. It's a phone call, right. Cause you've died a lot.

[Jessie]

I die a lot, yeah. To the point that mates are like, hey, do you die in this one? Cause I just.

[Caroline]

Ugh.

[Jessie]

And actually, my mum came to see me in Hamlet, so this is ages ago now, but there were, like, a couple of jobs back to back where I just, like, kept dying. And it was the last time she came to see the last show, and she came backstage after and she was like, I just need you to. Can you just stop dying? I don't want to watch you die.

[Caroline]

Do you know what? That's.

[Jessie]

So I was like, fair enough. And it's not like I was dying and just like, oh, whoopsie.

[Caroline]

Like, dominated dying. It's just, like, harrowing death.

[Jessie]

Death by, like, she's like, death by suicide or death by, like, being flipped over. Death and childbirth or death. And it's just.

[Caroline]

Honestly, May I posit a theory?

[Jessie]

Yes.

[Caroline]

I think it's because you have passed f face. It's.

[Jessie]

What's that mean?

[Caroline]

Because you have so many actors. They have. I'm sure we all do this at home when we're watching stuff with our. Our families, our partners or whatever. It's like they have face that looks like it's seen a phone too many times. She look like. Sometimes I see actors and, like, she looks like she's has a TikTok account and she's playing somebody from 1920. And it's completely taking me out of it. Whereas you have a face that scans in any period of time. So I think you get cast a lot of period stuff. And what happens to women in the past? They go die.

[Jessie]

I mean, it's still treacherous out here, and it's 20, 25. So you're like, woman in the past. I remember someone asking me, actually, they.

[Caroline]

Were like, present day. Ooh.

Nearly. Okay.

[Jessie]

Attempts. There have been attempts. But you know what? Someone asked me once, they were like, oh, if you were kind of linked to the kind of period thing, right? Of going, if there was any time in history, where would you go back to? I thought, okay, okay. I'm not gonna lie. There are times where I'M like, I'd like to go back for a day with a guaranteed pass that I'm coming back now so I can honestly just raid shops and buy like the boots that like.

[Caroline]

And I want to be fully vaccinated first.

[Jessie]

Fully vaccinated. Go back, shop a little bit and accidentally invest in apples. That would be clever. And like, do that. But come back because my answer is always, that's mental. Why would I go back to a time is even more likely to just like, no one will believe you. Everyone hates you. You're being like, it's just terrifying. Absolutely mental. So, yeah, I do think maybe it's something to do with that.

[Caroline]

It is really.

[Jessie]

I do die a lot, but like, touchwood.

It's quite nice though to do a job where you don't.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Where you just keep on living.

[Jessie]

Keep on living.

[Caroline]

Oh, nice.

[Jessie]

You're not like, oh, I wonder where that could have gotten.

[Caroline]

Oh, well. Do you know what I think after post Remore for Joey, I love this because I'm just like signposting us with moments from Joey's life and then I have the equally mad stories from your life and be like, wow, being an actor really is mental. That's one thing they did portray actually very beautifully is that it's a crazy, crazy job.

[Jessie]

It's a crazy, crazy job. Yeah.

[Caroline]

I think one of the most sort of heartbreaking moments of. Because he has like. What I really love about this show as well is that they. It's a sitcom, but they do have like season long story arcs where with dramatic peaks and troughs like Ross Post Divorce and Rachel Post, you know, Bloomingdale or whatever. Yeah. They really do feel like arcs. And one of them is Joey Post Drake Remori. Like, what's he gonna do? How's he gonna secure his career? And finding out like how little that actually means in the world. That like being a soap opera star for a couple of weeks or whatever or a season actually means nothing. And there's this episode where he's going on a PBS fundraiser.

[Jessie]

Oh, I love this episode.

[Caroline]

And it's one of those call in things and he thinks he's hosting the whole show and he shows up in a tuxedo and then he's just like one of the, one of the people taking calls.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And I was like, that's very real.

[Jessie]

It's very real.

[Caroline]

It's very real. And we've all had moments in any kind of public facing thing where like, you think you've had this like breakthrough moment where like, I've Hit a bestseller list or I've won an award or I've done this or like, whatever. And then you show up to like a bookshop event where three people have come and you're like, oh, no. There is never a moment where you reach a level of career comfort.

[Jessie]

No, there are like, there were sort of, I'd say like four to five people who were just, oh, it's you. And they're like really old.

[Caroline]

They're like really old. They're Celia Imrie.

[Jessie]

It's Celia. It's Meryl. It's Julie Roberts and Clooney. It's just, it's wild. And I think like the fact that he turns out suited and booted and not late and not sort of, oh, give me my, my thing. Or like, where's my. It's just more that he's so excited and he just assumes that he's going to be sort of for that night. Like, like tonight, Matthew I will be hosting. And that he kind of steps into that. But he, he does it still with so much grace, which I think so many people just wouldn't add. But I remember reading a script and, and thinking, oh, okay. Oh, very nice. Okay, cool. I mean, I don't. Thank you very much, but I don't. She's quite young, but I'll give it a go. And then I went to the audition and I realized that I'd.

[Caroline]

Oh, no, not the mother, not the mother, not the mother.

[Jessie]

No, not quite. But like for so many years it been like, you know, you're the, the hot young thing, you know, the princess who will fall in love with, you know, or whatever it is. And then you realize, oh no, that's being played by a 24 year old, you idiot. You're in your mid-30s, wake up. And then you're like, oh, but actually the other role, way more complex, way more interesting, like much more exciting. But there was this moment of going, jessie, humble yourself. Yeah, of course they're not asking you to play the 24 year old that's been played by a very successful, very beautiful young actor. You're playing the other role.

But that you have these moments of peaks and tossings, like just as what it is to be an actor. And there are some funky moments actually when you realize, oh, you're going up for a role where, yeah, the person playing your daughter is four years younger than you. Which I've had once.

[Caroline]

Holy fucking.

[Jessie]

And I thought I was like, guys, this is, you know, thank you and I'll still go on tape. I'd love to be employed, but I do think this might be a tiny stretch.

[Caroline]

Question mark.

[Jessie]

And then when you don't hear back, you think, okay, not a stretch. Okay, that's fine.

Obviously, like, that's all within. Like I always say that in. But, like, it's definitely very sweet, like, seeing him take these moments and then also not wanting. Isn't there an episode where he doesn't want to audition? And he's saying to his agent, he's.

[Caroline]

Like, no, he has to audition for the part of himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jessie]

And he's like, but how can I. Why am I auditioning to be his twin? I was him. And you know what? To.

[Caroline]

Fair enough. Fair play.

[Jessie]

Fair play. I mean, maybe if they were fraternal, you could write it up to just not having, like, quite as much, like, similarities. But bless him. Yeah, it's definitely a humbling job.

[Caroline]

That's it. Like, people, like. It's just anything that's creative whatsoever is just totally a beautiful life embroidered with tiny humiliations every single day, all the time.

[Jessie]

But I think personally, I think you have to kind of be slightly obsessed with.

Failure or the idea of something basically things not working and being okay about it, whether it's immediate or over a little bit of time. Because if you don't want to be open to the idea of failing many times over, constantly auditioning, trying to find the route and trying to find the way or the new way that your brain can work, then you basically want to stay the same, which, as an artist is not the way you create art. You can't do the same thing over and over again. Because then you. Then you're a printer. You're literally an HP printer going, copy, paste, copy, paste. It just. Nothing is new, right? And so if you're doing that, it's not the work, but also that it does. There are times where it hurts a lot more. But do you think.

[Caroline]

Okay, here's my next question. Do you think in a way. So we know that for. From a craft point of view, yeah. Joey Tribbiani is not a, quote unquote, good actor, but in a way he's a good actor because. Because he, like, he has going. He has no neuroses whatsoever. And so he's not bringing dark energy into the room. He's bringing very light. Like I can. Like, so this is in a world as well, which I'm sure you're very nostalgic for. This is pre the self tape. This is people going into room with full of rooms that look exactly what people exactly look like them waiting till.

[Jessie]

Their neighbors calls, humiliating myself and then going, well, you know what? I'm gonna go and wander around Topshop for an hour and maybe buy a hairband.

[Caroline]

I can imagine what's really beautiful about that of like going into a room full of strangers, leaving it all on the floor and being like, I don't know if that works. But now it's well, who knows?

[Jessie]

At least I got to talk to some human beings today about a script that I sat down and read and made notes about and got to feel what they were like and see how they work or like tap into their brain and then and think, oh, I'd never thought about it like that. Let's give it another go. Ugh.

[Caroline]

There's one audition episode I'm really fond of which is where he is playing. He's up for a part where he plays like a dandy and he gets a man bag because he wants to impress. He gets Rachel to dress him because he wants to seem really chic.

[Jessie]

I really love that shirt and tie combo that he wears. He looks so good. It looks amazing.

[Caroline]

Yeah, he really does look great.

[Jessie]

He really looks great. And they all take the piers, Rachel's army and I like, it really holds up. It's one of the best looks.

[Caroline]

Honestly. Every time I watch Friends with Gav in the room, he's always like, I need like an as seen on screen for just Joey Fitz because they're the same body type.

[Jessie]

Big heaven.

[Caroline]

Big little big little guys.

[Jessie]

Big little guys.

[Caroline]

Yeah, the kind of thing of like going into an audition with fragments of the character. Not as the. You're not going in a Susan armor or whatever but like you're. Oh, he's a dandy. So I'm going to be a dandy as well. It's so interesting to love. Love.

[Jessie]

I remember doing that quite a lot and I, I did a screen test where I, I took my. It was for a period piece chocolate. And I am. I went all the way over to LA to do the screen test and I, I brought with me crazy again, Gone. I mean gone. Which environmentally probably good but I loved it and I, I took with me my Edwardian French wedding dress that I'd bought which I pre owned.

[Caroline]

What? Why?

[Jessie]

Because I just this vintage shop that used to be on Camden Passage which I think doesn't exist anymore that. That particular shop and I bought it in the sale and it was just like a cotton and lace kind of dress. Like the kind of thing that you'd put over the top of something. But Anyway, I just wore it and I. They were like, if you have something, you know, soft or like something to wear. And I just turned up full period costume. Yes, I did.

[Caroline]

Oh my God, yes I did.

[Jessie]

But I just thought like, you know, if I'm ever gonna go there, if I'm ever gonna do it, I might as well, you know, might as well do it. So my man bag worked. But that's one example of one audition. The rest of the time I'm like, please unisex. Sometimes it looks mad. I mean, I fully accept that I looked mad, but I think that was kind of an essence of the character.

[Caroline]

But the thing is, is that, I mean, not too much away. But having watched a lot of self tapes myself recently, when someone chooses to do something a bit memorable, you know, they're doing it to seem memorable, but you do remember them.

[Jessie]

I know. Does work. Might always work the way you want it to, but you don't forget.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jessie]

I knew someone once went to an audition at the very end, left, and walked into a cupboard instead of the door.

And because of the type of audition it was.

They thought, this is kind of shit that this director will love. So I'm gonna stay in here for a bit. And they stayed in there for a bit and then eventually walked out. But then, oh my God, the chutzpah, the chutzpah. But then when I saw them, I was like, how did it go? And they're like, absolutely fucking awful. I walked. I left and walked into a cupboard and it sounds like something, a sketch from a show.

[Caroline]

It sounds like Janet would do.

[Jessie]

Yeah. And I found that incredibly funny. I don't think at the time they found it funny. But you know what? They got a call back. Well, I thought, well, look at you go.

[Caroline]

Sometimes just being memorable, just being memorable is enough.

[Jessie]

Don't know if they were any good, but walked into a cupboard and they got callback.

[Caroline]

It sound like they got it.

[Jessie]

No, I don't think they did.

[Caroline]

But still, callback is a lot. He's a lot. I want us to talk more about Joey's theatrical career.

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Yes.

[Caroline]

And do you remember the plot of the play Boxing Day?

[Jessie]

Oh my God. This is the one where.

His co star is this one also when he falls in love with his co star.

[Caroline]

Yes. Big production, many episodes, three or four episode arc.

[Jessie]

Quite a few. And then he's like, the director's in love with her and it's the whole thing. But I could not tell you anything about the play other than two things. One, the woman is Dressed seemingly the entire time from the bits that you see, in a night robe. And then at the end, it seems that the story concludes with Joey's character who's. Oh, what's his name? Oh my God, Vic, where are you going? Vic, where are you going? That he. These sort of steps from. I'm taking it, some kind of spaceship come down through the ceiling of the apartment and he heads off into space where he will come back in hundreds of years time, ageless. Because of course, let's face it, it is still the 90s when they're making this show. So this woman will be dead, but he will not age, will not have aged a day.

[Caroline]

And tell your great great great granddaughter to look me up because I'm gonna want to meet her.

[Jessie]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline]

Perfections.

[Jessie]

You can just imagine also the writers having so much fun of going, what could be. What's one of the worst? If we're only seeing moments of this, what tiny story can we tell? How can we confirm to our audience watching this that this play is in fact as bad as the reviews say it is after the fact. Cause they're all there after the thing. They say that it's not the worst thing.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

Anyway, and it doesn't.

[Caroline]

The director is so pretentious. The name of the play, Boxing Day, we're like, okay, this sounds like it's like a David Mamet situation or whatever. Kate, is this like very proper actress. The scenes that we see in this three or four episode arc is like very like Revolutionary Road, like marriage drama.

[Jessie]

Like, I look at you, nothing.

[Caroline]

I kiss you, nothing. And it's like. And like you find out about the reviews and you're like, oh, maybe people don't like it just because it's like hackneyed and over the top and a bit melodramatic and a bit. But no, the reason people don't like it is because it goes to space for the end for no reason in what would have been a very expensive rigging.

[Jessie]

Yes.

I love how so often you can just. Also, like I was just saying.

You can imagine the writers going, oh, that's so fun. Can we please write a play, please? Like, because we can't go and write a play right now because we're writing this huge, very long running TV series.

[Caroline]

And their whole background is in playwrights.

[Jessie]

And playwrights rights and living in New York and seeing loads of terrible plays, 10 bad plays. And then you'll see one, one play that will stay with you and completely shifts the way that you think about art.

[Caroline]

But you gotta see those 10 bad.

[Jessie]

See those 10 bad plays, baby.

[Caroline]

What we have, I mean this is not a Joey Tribbiani production. But he. On the episode where he. We find out that the way in which Joey learns to manage with grace, the fact that he is a famous soap opera actor whose best friend with the same people that he knows, has known for years and he adores them. But he also learned that he can't mix them with his famous friends, that these are work friends. And so we find out that every year he has an incredibly chic party on the roof. Yes. And no one knows and nobody knows. And we cover it in detail in another episode. But the he sends them all to a play which is a one woman show called why don't you like me? Chapter one, my first period.

[Jessie]

Also, isn't that the actor, brilliant actor who plays Sophie in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?

[Caroline]

It could be.

[Jessie]

I think it might be.

[Caroline]

I watched that episode the other night. It could be. Wow. Chapter one, my first period. And everyone else has gotten the memo about the party and Chandler's just left there alone in the front row.

[Jessie]

Oh yeah. And he doesn't mix his friends, his actor friends with thing because they all freak out and they want to. They were like, Rachel's trying to date one of them.

[Caroline]

Having seen Monica Chandler at that party. I'm like, Joey, you'd made the right call. You were not supposed to mix these people.

[Jessie]

Well done, babe.

[Caroline]

He has his professional connections.

[Jessie]

And then yeah.

[Caroline]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means needs a half day. Yeah. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed flow after 35 gigabytes of network.

[Jessie]

Spizzy taxes and fees extra c mintmobile.com.

[Caroline]

Did I talk too much?

[Jessie]

Can't I just let it go? Thank you so much.

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[Caroline]

Let's talk about the Vegas arc which I just watched the other night and is so Kind of heartbreaking.

[Jessie]

It's really heartbreaking. And also so funny because it's all that section when, like, they've got, like, mustaches on and they get married.

[Caroline]

It's so good.

[Jessie]

It's delicious.

[Caroline]

It's delicious. But, like, I can see they wanted to get them to Vegas because it's always fun to bring them somewhere. And clearly they had so much luck with bringing them to the uk. They bring them to London and they were like, oh. Then it became the kind of show where they send them places.

[Jessie]

And it still works.

[Caroline]

It still works. I mean, I feel like the later seasons, I don't think it's controversial to say, doesn't feel as exciting because they are pairing off more. But those them going away episodes still have so much excitement to them. And that the reason that they send them away is because Joey gets his, quote unquote, big break because he's gonna be the lead in a movie. And everyone's like, wow, Amazing, Jo. And here's like, the trickles of him. And this is like, so as well. Having any kind of friend in the arts is like the trickling of information when you slowly realize that what you thought was the house of bricks is a house of straw for them. And the house of straw is on fire. And you're like, oh, I just have to keep being happy for you through this terrible plan. And so it's like, first he says the plot of the movie. And it's just like.

I meet this girl and then I go and try and find her. Cause I'm in love with her. And then someone opens the do and says, she's been dead for 20 years. And he just keeps on revealing that, have you heard the plot of the film? She's been. How could this not work?

[Jessie]

It's amazing.

[Caroline]

And then they find out that. And. And Chandler's like, oh, I'll drive to Vegas with you and we'll take Phoebe's cab. It'll be great. He's like, are they putting us up on a hotel room? And Joey's like, no, I thought I'd stay in your hotel room. And Char was like, what? He's like, yeah, they. The production isn't putting us up. And they're like, oh, no, no, they have no money. They're. They're going to pay me 10% of what they make. Chandler's like, oh, no. Oh, no. And then they get into the car and, you know, they do that game. And Chandler admits that he doesn't think it's gonna be Joey's big Break. And then Joey throws him out of the car because his feeling is so hurt.

[Jessie]

And it's. Isn't there a shot in the desert? And he gets there and like all the trailers are like driving away and it's just the plug has been pulled.

[Caroline]

And it's a real needle drop moment as well. It's like they go, the been through the desert with a horse with no reins. That song. Yeah, yeah.

[Jessie]

And then it goes. I think it goes into another episode. And the next time you see him, because he doesn't come home, it's really cinematic. He just, he's like, no, I'm gonna stay here and just for a bit until I get myself.

[Caroline]

He hopes the production will set up my head.

[Jessie]

I just start back up again. So he's like, okay, well, I'll make myself available. That's what it really sings to, is that you make yourself available. You think, okay.

Well, I won't, I won't book a holiday. Because if I, if I do go away or if I tell my friend, I can definitely make her wedding. You know, if I, if I do that, I might not get, if I get a job, I'm not gonna be able to do the job. Or like, you know, and you sort of weirdly put your life on hold. Early doors, you put loads of things on hold. Are you just like, no, no, I need to be available. I can't do anything in my real life because if I get a job, I need to just be like you. Yes. And then jump on it and just do it and be available. And then obviously as you get older, you were like, okay, like, I missed a couple of friends weddings and like a christening or two and stuff like that. Early Doors, where I'm like, I'm never doing that again. I'd be like, if there is any world in which I could have from this hour to this hour, off to go to my best friend's wedding, please, please, please can I go? I once went like through the night to get somewhere to the wedding. Slept in the car on the way there to the wedding and then got picked up at 3 in the morning. Did not go to sleep, slept in the car. Went all the way back to Wales to film on the Sunday to, like, do a job. But like, it's like this moment where he's like, don't go home. Stay here. Keep the dream alive. Just make sure you're available. Don't do anything and don't tell anyone what's really happening. It makes me really sad that he just his and that's where his pride, I think, you know, because he's proud that he got this big thing and it means the freaking world when you think it's going to change your life. And then if it falls apart or it. And you do this thing also as an actor that you start to. When you fall in love with something and you start reading it and then you're like, I can see it. I can see it in my brain. Oh, my God, I really know this character. This character's like me. And I can move to this country or to this city and then maybe.

[Caroline]

Learn Italian and things like falling in love, doesn't it.

[Jessie]

It feels like fantasizing about this whole world. And then you'll get to do the thing you love with the script that you think is amazing, even if you're delusional. And it is terrible. But you just start imagining being able to do the thing. And when it disappears, that's when it's brutal because you have to go, okay, so that won't be where I am in March. No, I'll be here sitting and waiting for the number 8 bus in the rain going, why is it cancelled again?

[Caroline]

Again?

[Jessie]

It's get a line bike and just get wet. It's fine.

[Caroline]

It's like, yeah, you have to just sort of live in this double life of like, it. It is the same with writings. I've had situations where I've been, like, put up for screenwriting, massive adaptations of books I adore, and I've, like, I've, like, I planned the whole thing out. Like, oh, my God, and the sea. We're gonna open on this and we're gonna cast this person. It's gonna be amazing. And like, God, they have so much budget and then those opportunities simply just go away. And sometimes they don't even get made. And it's not even that they pick somebody, they just simply evaporate and go away. And you have to live in this sort of double life where it's like, in order to do your craft properly and well, you have to have this bottomless enthusiasm, which I think you and I are very good at, being like, very gung ho. And like, do you know what? We'll put on a show in the barn. It'll be all great.

[Jessie]

Come on, let's keep going. For the love of God.

[Caroline]

Exactly.

[Jessie]

But at the same time, you have.

[Caroline]

To have such a light hold on it and be like, that didn't work out. Fine.

[Jessie]

Okay, fine.

[Caroline]

Never wanted it, never liked it, never cared.

[Jessie]

Absolutely fine. It's gonna be okay. It's very hard thing.

[Caroline]

It's like a psychological say. It makes me really understand why so many actors and people in the entertainment industry in general. Yeah. They get into horoscopes and superstitions and everything. Because, like, as I'm sure you. You would tell me.

[Jessie]

Burning some sage, right?

[Caroline]

The. The. The trick to getting a job is making some plans, right? Like, everywhere. Every actor I know tells me it's like, oh, I didn't think I was gonna get something, so I, like, booked a holiday to Barbados. And then the next day I got some huge thing.

[Jessie]

Yes.

[Caroline]

Like, it's a weird, super right at.

[Jessie]

The moment where you go, you know what? This is it. I think I'm done. I think I'm actually done. Like, if it's not this, I'm over it. And then they're like, do you want to go to Broadway? You're like, yes. I knew it. And it's always at this very wild breaking point. I'm sure for many people it isn't, but it does feel when it comes. You hold onto it with your entire fricking heart. But also, you have to just let go of something and not think about. About what could have been and then have the grace and the sort of openness to them when that thing, say, if it does happen, you go and watch that person in that play, or you go and see the film and you celebrate the thing that it is that you loved anyway, even if it's not you. You know, it's kind of like, I don't know, sort of like, great. Loves that, actually. You're like, I just hope you're happy. That'd be nice. But it's sometimes really hard, and you're like, you know what? I don't think I'm ever gonna watch that film.

[Caroline]

I can't bear it.

[Jessie]

I can't bear it. Poor Joey. He has to find him.

[Caroline]

He has to work in Cedar's palace as a gladiator.

[Jessie]

They do find him and they tell him it's okay and he can come home.

[Caroline]

But, oh, my God. What I love about this whole segment, it does feel like it. Again, these arcs, they really do sort of are very satisfying, and they pay off in ways that are so unbelievably strange and so funny, where it's like, he's like. He's hit this low point. His friends have realized that everything's falling apart. He has no future as an actor. He's turning 30. He doesn't know what he's. But it's okay because he Found his identical hand twin on the roulette table in Vegas.

[Jessie]

This hand is mine.

[Caroline]

This hand is your hand.

[Jessie]

No, wait, that's mine.

[Caroline]

The thing is, it's so. It's so funny. It's so iconic, it's mad. I don't know how the fuck they came up with it, but like. Like everything really funny and mental and great. It's like. It's like up there with the kind of the Monty Python cartoon foot. The kind of moment. It's like, that's how stupid it is. But it gets to something qu. Which is that moment of desperation where.

[Jessie]

You'Re like, I just need an in. If I can get an in, if I can just make a splash of being that guy who has a hand that looks like this other guy's hand, like, who can tell? Then maybe the jobs will just start flowing and I'll get.

[Caroline]

You know, it's the act.

[Jessie]

He will stand there and get a real award and be able to say thank you to all the people he's loved.

[Caroline]

The identical hand awards, like, the. It's so heartbreaking because as well. So, you know, as a writer, you have these moments where you're. You're on the bleeding edge of desperation, both financially and creatively, and it feels like nobody wants to hire you and blah, blah. And so you're just casting her and you're like, what if I have.

[Jessie]

Everyone should hire you, by the way.

[Caroline]

Thank you.

[Jessie]

Incredible.

[Caroline]

Thank you. She's booked. But, like, you. You're like, what if I start a substack? What if I wrote into Vogue and asked them for a column? But you are always in the driver's seat. Even if you are desperate and no one wants to fucking tow your car or whatever, you still are in the driver's seat. If you're an opportunity. If you're an actor, you are not in the driver's seat. That's why you are subject to fates and whims, and that's why you are superstitious and all this kind of stuff. So you're just, like, looking at a guy's hand and being like, his hand is a bit like my hand. Is that anything?

[Jessie]

Is that a thing? Could this be a thing? I love it so much. And also it's so funny because, like, talking about Friends through a lens and Joey being an actor and all this stuff is like. You see, there's also. There is this side that I know we've touched on, but just that there's a group of actors doing this thing. And this is like, years into Running. And they can now work together so well that this show does work for a couple of episodes outside of this apartment. But also, they were all so brilliant at their job. So brilliant at their job that they could also do episodes like the episode, the one where no one's ready.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Jessie]

And it all. It just. It's all in this apartment.

[Caroline]

One room.

[Jessie]

You don't follow into bedrooms. People go into bedrooms, and then they come back out and that this sort of beat and, like, whole world happens in this one apartment. And I just think it's so. It's so delicious that it can work both those ways and that all of them have their characters and their whole sort of world can exist in one room, and they're coming in with all these stories and that we can know.

[Caroline]

So much about the outside world. We can know so much about, you know, Ross and the museum and all this stuff that. That we can pull in. All this context and history, the world building. World building is.

[Jessie]

Everything exists there, and you can take it outside and put it somewhere else.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

I'm just so happy that those actors got to do that. So cool.

[Caroline]

It's so cool. And I'm sure they're all sick of talking about it. I'm sure it's funny listening to. Listening to all those interviews I've been listening to. It's like they're all just like. And now I guess I'll talk about friends, because I know it's what everyone wants for me, and that must be difficult. But also, what a fucking blood.

[Jessie]

What a blessing. But also, I think sort of now it's maybe long enough that they've, you know, like, some of them have kids and their kids are sort of referencing it or that it's kind of come back around and that maybe you need this. You need space. And then you go, oh, that was special.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Jessie]

Or like, you know, with Matthew Perry passing away, that it's when something wild and unthinkable happens that you go, oh, it was really. I'm not saying that you need, like, immense tragedy to replace an experience, but sometimes a little bit of space between the madness of experiencing it. And I'm sure you're like your world turning upside down in a way that we just can't even remotely imagine and, like, being that famous, but then also for it to still be relevant. People love it so much. There must be this kind of full circle moment of going, oh, I did do something that people still really like. And that's a magic thing to leave behind. Do you know what I mean? To sort of. And how proud to be. I don't know. I sometimes look at my younger self and go, I didn't know what I was doing. But if anyone. I sort of always sort of think, I don't mind if people know me from something I did a very long time ago because all I was trying to do was do something I love. And if anyone can remember that or if they liked it or think, isn't that sort of the point? Not for someone to recognize you. I mean, for someone to have gone. I really remember that because I have that in spades knowing, you know, if I saw certain people or met them or songs that changed my life or books that completely rejigged my brain.

[Caroline]

And it's also.

[Jessie]

That's what it is.

[Caroline]

It's the function of television as well. And television in your living room. Right, right. And it's. They're present for weeks every week. Right. And the way that you have been in your career as well, you're present for people's lives in a way that you are not with other kind of culture. And I guess the further I get into doing the series as well, the more I'm thinking about, like, how much of the content we're all ingesting is sort of junk food. And like, so much of sort of like being sent, like, a hilariously specific TikTok. And that is like, so you, like, like, oh, my God, I feel like this person's reading my brain because it's so specific. And it's just for me. And it's me and my little rectangle phone.

[Jessie]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

There's a joy that comes from that, but it's just. It's a junk food joy that is incomparable to the comfort food joy of this kind of big general soup that everybody, you know, has seen almost all of. And you can text any of your friends in any country and just be like, any. Any quo or whatever. It's a moo point. It's a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter. And like, the fact that you can, like, bond with people on the. The fact that, you know, that you can come to it and everything about it, from the rhythm of the speech to the grade of the color of the screen, is going to just hold you in a way.

[Jessie]

You see those early series, like, the grip that has on me from having. I just have random videos, like, from certain series, like from the first couple or something. Random ones. I think we just got them in the bargain bin at Blockbuster and bought them. And the fact that, yeah, like, the certain generation of people. And I'm sure like it's sort of stretching and. But you know, at the time we were just watching this thing was once a week and you kind of watch this thing on TV that you just all sort of. It shaped a certain part and that it's kind of how rare that something exists that kind of will just stay with you and what always you can come back to. And it sort of holds you. Holds you in a new way because you're not who you were at like 11. But also somehow holds you, the 11 year old in your. And that you could have all of that in one thing. That's so rare. That's so rare.

[Caroline]

That's really beautifully put.

[Jessie]

I think it's. And also there's so much emphasis on to be an artist, everything must be of a certain buzzy caliber. But some of the most influential parts of how we are and the way that we sort of interact with ourselves or want to become whatever it is sometimes can be a. Influenced by a sitcom, by something being allowed to be funny. Some of which holds up, some of which doesn't. But something that was trying to just be a bit joyful once a week for the sake of kind of joy. That's so rare and it's not often seen. And the fact that it's still there is. I just. I'm obsessed.

[Caroline]

Obsessed.

[Jessie]

I was like sometimes, you know, I haven't seen that very fancy new movie, but I have spent the last three days making biscuits and re watching Friends and repeating lines back to myself.

[Caroline]

It won't make you a worse person. No.

It really won't.

[Jessie]

It really won't. Like, come on, life is long. Three watch Friends.

[Caroline]

Jesse, we gotta wrap this up. I love it. I love it so much. I wish you a Japanese commercial for itchy band for men and your future.

[Jessie]

Oh my God, me too. That's be fantastic.

[Caroline]

Okay, I have to ask of all of Joey's roles, which one would you most like to play of everything. We didn't even mention Mac and cheese.

[Jessie]

Oh my God.

[Caroline]

We kind of did at the beginning.

[Jessie]

Of all the jobs that Joey does, I think I would most like to do. I want to do the noodle soup with the kid just so I to see if I could get the line right.

And also, do you think that you'd get paid in the soup?

I'm not asking him to be paid in soup, but just like. Or maybe just like an advert. You know what the. The advert for like loads of people do this now, but you just get an advert that no one, sort of like no one in your friend circle ever see, but somehow it's there and just like you're like, oh, okay, great. I can.

[Caroline]

Didn't you have a clean and clear.

[Jessie]

I did have a clean and clear advert when I was younger and I do not know where it is and I'm not going to lie, I have searched for it. It.

[Caroline]

But that blackhead thing where you have to squeeze an imaginary spa.

[Jessie]

Yes. I had a blackhead in the corner of my nose and I was like, thing is, I actually do. And they were like, we'll actually blot that out and put out in like.

[Caroline]

Put in a new blackhead.

[Jessie]

Like a new, like, you know, one that doesn't look. Anyway, there you go.

[Caroline]

And that's capitalism, baby. Jesse, thank you for joining us today. I love you.

[Jessie]

I love you too.

[Caroline]

Bye.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

[Jessie]

Hey, it's Christy. And I'm Kelly. You might remember us as the OG Partners in Crime from Dance Moms. Well, this is Back to the Bar, the podcast where we drag out every insane, chaotic and iconic moment from the show. We're spilling the tea, calling out all the BS and sharing stuff you definitely didn't see on tv. New episodes drop every week and yes.

[Caroline]

We'Re laughing through the drama for once.

[Jessie]

Follow grab a drink and join us as we go back to the bar.

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[Caroline]

Com.