James Michael Tyler who played Gunther on "Friends" has died

Brut India

For many, he will forever be Gunther, Central Perk's aloof waiter who's unrequited love for Rachel culminated in the last episode of "Friends."  James Michael Tyler died at age 59 after a battle with cancer.

Transcript

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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