The animal trainer who worked with the monkeys who appeared as Marcel the Monkey on Friends suggested actor David Schwimmer was jealous of his co-star.
"This is just my opinion... [but] the first couple episodes [Schwimmer] was pretty friendly with the monkey, and after that, the monkey was getting a lot of laughs, and either it was throwing him off or [he was] getting a little jealous," trainer Mike Morris told The Sun, as reported by Entertainment Weekly. "I don't know. One of those two things."
Morris' response came after years of Schwimmer slamming his monkey co-stars. The actor, who portrayed Ross Gellar on the series, started the feud back in 1995 when he told EW, "I hate the monkey."
Schwimmer appeared to double down on the sentiments during HBO Max's Friends reunion, when he said, "Here is my problem: The monkey, obviously, was trained. It had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time. What inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out, and it would get messed up because the monkey didn't do its job right." He added, "So we would have to reset, we'd have to go again because the monkey didn't get it right."
Morris, who worked with the monkeys on about five episodes of Friends, also responded to Schwimmer's previous claims he wasn't allowed to bond with his monkey co-stars on set, explaining, "It is true that we prefer that actors don't become too friendly with the monkey."
"An actor is a prop to the monkey and has to work with that prop," Morris said. "We don't want them to become friends because then [monkeys] think, 'Oh, it's my friend, I don't have to work…They just want to go hang out with their friend instead of doing what they're supposed to do. It's not out of spite or malice."
In addition to appearing in scenes with Schwimmer, the monkeys also appeared in scenes with Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc, who Morris said were both "a pleasure to work with."
Friends: The Reunion featured the return of original cast members Jennifer Anniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. Also featured were a variety of guest stars, including Tom Selleck, James Michael Tyler, David Beckham, Justin Bieber, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga, Elliott Gould, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon and Malala Yousafzai. It's streaming now on HBO Max.
Source: Entertainment Weekly