Friends Paid Tribute To Jennifer Aniston’s Greek Heritage

We thought we have all the information about Friends and we thought we found all the Easter Eggs but nope. We missed one.

In one of Friends episodes, they pay tribute to Jennifer Aniston’s Greek heritage. Any guesses?

The One with Chandler and Monica’s wedding had an Easter egg as a tribute to Jennifer. If you have not watched Friends, please go and watch it because I might provide a few spoilers here.

In the episode, Chandler, the groom goes missing and Joey, who was supposed to officiate the wedding is late. And if you know Monica, you know this is not something she will ever sign up for especially on her wedding day.

However, Rachel, played by Jennifer, has to find another minister to officiate at the wedding. As she searches at the venue itself for another minister, she stumbles upon a wedding. It was the wedding of the Anastassakis and Papasifakis families. Remember?

Turns out the name she pretended she did not know how to pronounce is a part of Jennifer’s father’s name. Anastassakis is her father’s surname. Jennifer’s father comes from the island of Crete, Greece. Her father’s name is John Aniston as of now but when he was born, his name was Yiannis Antonios Anastasakis. 

The episode aired nearly 20 years ago but fans are still keen on finding Easter eggs in the hit sitcom. The wedding was a two-part episode and extremely entertaining. Jennifer played the role of Rachel Green.

If you have been living under a rock, Friends is a hit sitcom about six friends who live in New York City trying to deal with life. The group was twenty-something in the series. It aired from 1994 to 2004.

The role of Rachel Green put Jennifer on the map with her other co-stars. Fans still watch the sitcom all over the world even after airing its finale almost 16 years.

However, recently Jennifer revealed she felt typecast after doing Friends. Jennifer reveals that her iconic character left her feeling typecast in Hollywood. Friends gave Jennifer overnight fame and turned her into a superstar.

She felt like she is being typecast especially when she wanted to play different characters with different personalities.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer explained that she has fought for people to see her other than ‘that girl in the New York apartment with purple walls’. She wanted to be seen as someone other than Rachel in the industry.

Aniston further expresses her outrage saying she could not get Rachel off her back. She said the show is on all the time and she felt like stopping it. She said: ‘I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape “Rachel from Friends,” and it’s on all the time and you’re like, “Stop playing that f***ing show!” (Laughter.)’

Jennifer claims that leaving Rachel’s role and disappearing as someone else felt like a relief to her. She recalls feeling terrified thinking if she was wrong and everybody else could see something she did not.

‘But I remember the panic that set over me, thinking, “Oh God, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe they’re right. Maybe everybody else is seeing something I’m not seeing, which is you are only that girl in the New York apartment with the purple walls,’ she reveals in the roundtable interview.

Jennifer further explains that she had to do it for her. She wanted to know if she could do something else other than play Rachel. Aniston says that she had to do it in front of the world.

Jennifer further explains that most of her career was fighting to be more than Rachel. She had to prove it to the world. But she, later on, says its a relief when she is older because you stop caring.

‘But there is such a freedom in getting older because you just stop giving a crap,’ she reveals.

Jennifer Aniston played the role of Rachel Green in the show ‘Friends’. She was a part of the show from 1994 to 2004. Aniston was also paid almost more than $1 million per episode.

Meanwhile, the cast of Friends was going to come back together for a reunion. It was set to begin filming back in March but was postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. 

The reunion may now begin filming in August, show co-creator Marta Kauffman told The Wrap. It all depends if everything goes back to normal.

Let us hope that this pandemic is contained as soon as possible so we can all go back to being excited about the Friends reunion.  

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