We're at Stage 24, the Warner Brothers' studio lot which the cast of Friends have called home for the past decade. next to the coffee shop set of Central Perk is Monica and Chandler's living room and kitchen. Further on from that is Joey's pad. The action is usually frantic but today the six stars of the series have an air of genuine sadness. Sitting in directors chairs, they have just received the final script for the last episode of one of the world's best-loved sitcoms. Courteney holds hands with Jennifer, Lisa brushes away tears and a well-developed sense of mischief underlies many of the jokes that fire at each other. What are they feeling as they bid a final farewell to Friends?

Are emotions running high right now?
Jennifer: We are like delicate china speeding towards a brick wall with inevitable pain...
Lisa: ...and we're going to smash into a million pieces and never be able to be put together again.

How does it feel to know that the experience is finally coming to an end?
Matt: Bittersweet. I think we took it for granted how much time we get to spend together - now we'll have to make appointments! It's really sad because it's almost a third of my life and a chapter closing.
Jennifer: It's absolutely painful in the weirdest way because it's the most fun and joyful place to be. It'll be hard to leave that.
Courteney: I'm pregnant, which is good timing because I'll have something to focus on. I can't imagine my life without these people, so hopefully we'll all keep in touch.
Lisa: It's a deeper loss than I was expecting. I knew we would be sad when the time came but it's really kind of hit me over the head. It feels like a really deep, deep loss.
Matthew: Fifty per cent of me feels that it's the right time to be closing this. It's time for me personally to get back on my figure skates.
Courteney: See, this is the kind of stuff we'll miss - figure skating? Could you imagine not having a nutball like that in your life every day?

How do you want your characters to end up?
David: I can't divulge where we're going except that it's exactly what I'd hoped for. We all end up with a new beginning and the audience has the sense that it's a new chapter.

How has your friendship changed over the past 10 years?
Courteney: We started off watching the show together every Thursday night for the first few years, but then people got into relationships, got married, has children...
Jennifer: We got lives!
Courteney: So it changed. Everybody loves everybody but Jennifer, Lisa and myself hang out a lot so I'm sure that will continue. And you boys see each other every day, right?
Matt: I've tried to hang out with you girls but you won't let me!

Courteney, can you compare being a mum on the show with your own pregnancy?
Courteney: This whole show has mirrored much of what I've gone through. I've been trying to get pregnant for the last five years so it's been weird. It's great we're finally adopting a baby on the show because Monica is going to be a great mum. She's wanted it for so long. David [Arquette - Courteney's husband] and I were watching an episode recently, and Matthew's character was talking about how Monica wanted to be a mum and how badly he wanted that for her. I was crying so much. I can't help but think I've become Monica and she has become me a little bit.

How do you hope the public will remember the show?
Matthew: As being funny and the nicest place to be. After September 11 our ratings went up as people saw us as 'comfort television'. The writing was always brilliant and it was a show you could count on to make you laugh on a week-to-week basis. I'm proud of that.

Courteney said how she and her character came to mirror each other. What about the rest of you?
Matthew: I used to fill any silence with humour and that also became a great excuse for Chandler to be funny. I think he has grown up a lot. Who would have guessed that Chandler and Monica would get married? I would make a much less interesting sitcom character now!
David: I certainly identified with Ross being vulnerable and a geeky scientist because that's me - I still watch the Discovery Channel and love science.
I didn't really have much to do with Phoebe personally, but I loved being someone who was so casual about the horrors that were her life experiences. In one way she's close to me because my world of denial is big - and I'm comfortable in it! But she did become more realistic, which makes me sad in a way because it was really nice to be that idiotic for a while!
Jennifer: I don't know if it's the character that changed me, or the experience of the show, because it brought me so much to life. I evolved as a person with this cast.
Matt: I think it's the experience rather than the character. I don't really think I'm that much like Joey [Matt leans over to Matthew, who is making faces, and shouts, "Matthew be quiet!"]. I had more of a carefree attitude when this all started and now I have a family [Matt recently had his first child with wife Melissa, who has two children from a previous marriage]. I feel like I've grown up.

Where would you like to be 10 years from now?
David: I'd love to be married with several kids, because some of the cast have already made that step and we're all excited for them. I'd also like to continue acting and directing.
Matt: Hopefully, I'll still be alive and working and enjoying my family.
Lisa: Who knows? I'm not getting any younger! But I imagine I'll do some independent films and maybe start writing. I'll have a teenage boy 10 years from now [Julian, who will be six in May] so I'll be monitoring his every move!
Courteney: In 10 years? I'd like to still be acting and producing and hopefully I'll have two kids by then.
Jennifer: I don't know what I'm going to do in 10 years. I didn't think about it 10 years ago and life has worked out for me better if I don't think ahead. I just like to stay in the moment, or at least in the week ahead.
Matthew: We've all been given a great gift that hopefully means we don't have to go off and make bad movies now!

Jenny Cooney Carrillo
Sky Magazine
May 1, 2004