Guest Starring on ‘Friends’ Was ‘Harrowing’ and ‘Alarming’ for Olivia Williams, Who Says ‘A Producer Just Yelled’ at an Actor on Set: ‘You’re Not Funny!’
Olivia Williams has given acclaimed performances in “Rushmore,” “The Sixth Sense” and “An Education.” She recently appeared as Camilla Parker Bowles in the final two seasons of Netflix’s popular drama series “The Crown.” But for many people, the British actor will always be Felicity from the Season 4 finale of “Friends.” Williams once called guest starring on the NBC sitcom “harrowing,” and she recently opened up to The Independent about the reasons why it wasn’t the best experience in a recent interview.
“Gosh. Well, just as an example, I was taken to the studio in a shared car with a wonderful actress whose character, I think, was called ‘Old Woman’,” Williams said, noting this actor was “distinguished” and “very good” but “at one point, a producer – who shall remain nameless – just yelled at her: ‘You’re not funny!’ And she didn’t come back the next day. So that was alarming.”
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“Oh, and ‘Friends’ was a brand, and you had to fit the brand,” Williams added. “You go into hair and make-up and you’re told, ‘There’s a look here, this is what we do.’ And that involved, essentially, plucking off all of your eyebrows. Literally [I was begging], ‘Please don’t take my eyebrows off, I might need them in another job!’ But yes, that’s the sense in which it was harrowing.”
Variety has reached out to Warner Bros. Discovery for comment.
Williams appeared as Felicity in “The One With Ross’s Wedding,” the two-part season finale of “Friends” Season 4. The episode centers on the main characters traveling to London for Ross’ wedding to Emily. The event infamously ends with Ross accidentally saying Rachel’s name during his vows. Williams’ Felicity is one of Emily’s bridesmaids and she attracts the attention of Joey.
“Maybe I’d have a lot more work if I shut up more,” Williams joked to The Independent. “I might actually be on some socialist actor blacklist, I don’t know…”
As The Independent noted: “Keeping mum has never been her forte. This is an actor who once called the American television industry ‘a combined piranha pit and cesspool.’ Who once used ‘cucumber-up-the-arse’ as an adjective to describe one of her characters. Who once said she got along swimmingly with Arnold Schwarzenegger – her co-star in a serial killer thriller called ‘Sabotage’ – owing to her ‘advantage, or disadvantage, of not having large breasts.’ She later begged an interviewer not to watch it.”
Williams most recently popped up on the big screen in “Another End,” which world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. She is also attached to star in “Dune: The Sisterhood,” a television extension of Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” franchise that is set to stream on Max. Williams will play Tula Harkonnen.
Set in the world of “Dune” 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides, the series follows the Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit. The prequel is based on the novel “Sisterhood of Dune” by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
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