00:00I kept my job at the actual coffee shop that I was working at as a real barista in real life,
00:05the first four years that Friends ran. And it was called the Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood.
00:10Okay, so I would shoot maybe two or three days a week on Friends. And then I kept my shifts at the
00:16real coffee shop. So I go in there, and people would walk in and do a double or triple or
00:22quadruple take, and often say, Gunther, wait, what are you doing here? I'm like, what would you like?
00:40The night before the first episode, when I went as an extra, a friend of mine
00:44wanted to practice, they were stylists, and they wanted to practice bleaching someone's hair.
00:48And since I didn't have a lot of hair up there to begin with, I said, why not? I'll be a guinea pig.
00:52So they bleached my hair, and I showed up as coffee guy the next day. The producers liked the
00:56look, and they said, keep it. And I had to keep it for 10 years. I was a background performer for the
01:02first season. I didn't speak until the 33 episode, which was midway through the second season.
01:07What is your favorite moment from the whole Friends?
01:24You know, there are so many, but I'd have to say the final scene where Gunther professes his love
01:29for Rachel after 10 years of unrequited love, and she shoots him down once again.
01:34But it was closure. And I think at that moment, Gunther realized that it was okay. It was going
01:39to be okay. And I would hope that today, in that alternate Friends reality or universe,
01:46if that all continued, Gunther would be happily married with about six little white-haired
01:50Gunther children running all over the house. This is the last tie that I wore as Gunther
02:00in the final episode of Friends, the final scene at Central Perk. And when we had the wrap party,
02:07I don't know if you can see that, but the entire cast and the creators of the show signed my tie.
02:18And the wardrobe people were kind enough to let me keep this, which that's one of the two mementos
02:27that I was able to take away from the set, that and a Central Perk cup.
02:37The biggest question I always get is, were they really friends about the six characters or actors?
02:45And I'm like, of course they were. Do you think you would really want to work with someone for
02:4810 years like that if you didn't have chemistry and weren't real friends? And they really were,
02:55and still are.
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