Happy 10 Years 'Friends'! Where Are the 'Friends' Cast & Creators Now?

Cox’s first post-Friends TV gig was 2007’s Dirt, which she executive produced with now ex-husband David Arquette. She starred as a tabloid editor in that for two seasons before it was cancelled in 2008. In 2009 she moved to ABC as Jules Cobb in Cougar Town — a show which gained a devoted enough following that when ABC decided to cancel it the show found a new, more loving home on TBS. She also made another appearance as strong-willed reporter Gale Weathers in Scream 4.

LeBlanc’s first post-Friends move was the ill-fated, critically panned Friends spinoff, Joey. That was canceled after two seasons, and it was in 2011 that LaBlanc made his real TV comeback. That was with the BBC/Showtime series Episodes, which was co-created by Jeffrey Kralik and Friends co-creator David Crane and in which LeBlanc stars as a fictionalized version of himself. That show’s been renewed for a fourth season, and it landed him an Emmy nod for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

The former Ross Geller made his first post-Friends move starring as a fictionalized version of himself in Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. From there he starred in the 2005 independent drama film Duane Hopwood and took roles on the London stage in Some Girls with Catharine Tate, as well as making his Broadway debut in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Schwimmer made his directoral debut with 2007 British comedy Run Fatboy Run starring Simon Peg. That same year he had a memorable guest appearance on 30 Rock as NBC environmental mascot Greenzo. He’s making his first big return to TV comedy this coming year, though, as one of the leads in ABC’s Irreversible . That show follows an “eccentric, self-absorbed couple, and their trials and tribulations — most of which they bring upon themselves.”

2006 was the first big year for Perry’s career post-Friends: He got Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for his leading role in the TV movie The Ron Clark Story, and Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip happened. In 2008 he, like Schwimmer, spent some time on the London Stage, in Perry’s case as part of the cast for David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity In Chicago. In 2009 he starred as a middle-aged Zac Efron in 17 Again, and in 2010 Perry’s comedy pilot Mr. Sunshine was picked up by NBC.

Mr. Sunshine was canceled after only nine episodes, but Perry returned to NBC in 2012 with Go On, a comedy about a widow dealing with the death of his wife through mandatory participation in a support group. Former Friends love interest Courtney Cox made an appearance on the show, with Perry returning the favor this past season on Cougar Town. The show was canceled after one season, but now Perry’s working on a remake of The Odd Couple with CBS.

The former Phoebe Bouffay spent a lot of the 2000s post-Friends in supporting roles on the big screen — including but not limited to Easy A, P.S. I Love You, and Bandslam. Her most beloved non-Phoebe role, though, is probably still that of Valerie Cherish in the single-season HBO comedy The Comeback: Kudrow played a former sitcom star struggling to make — you guessed it — a comeback.

Kudrow’s also co-created the improvised web series Web Therapy, which she stars in and which was reformated into a half-hour sitcom for Showtime. She also had an arc on the most recent season of Scandal, as presidential hopeful Josephine Marcus. Currently rumors of a Comeback Season 2 are running wild, so keep your fingers crossed for that one.

Ever heard of Related? Probably not, but it was one of the most severely underrated shows on the WB before its premature cancellation. Lizzy Caplan was in it! It was also the first big (non-Joey) post-Friends executive producing credit for Kauffman, who co-created Friends with David Crane and whose name you likely grew up with as the intro to Friends’ closing credits. Related was the 2005-2006 television season, and since then Kauffman’s executive produced a couple TV movies: Gifted, Five, and Call Me Crazy: A Five Film, the latter two of which are anthologies

Like Kauffman and Bright, co-creator Crane’s first post-Friends executive producing credit is tied up in Joey. The first truly post-Friends venture back into television came in 2006, when he co-created the shortlived CBS sitcom The Class (another post-Friends venture starring Lizzy Caplan!). He co-created that show with life partner Jeffrey Klarik (formerly a producer on Mad About You), with whom he then went on to co-create Episodes. That one’s entering its fourth season, has a number of Emmy nominations under its belt. It also stars former Friends star Matt LeBlanc as himself: The show’s premise follows two showrunners trying to adapt their popular British sitcom for American television, and LeBlanc is the American actor they’re forced to hire

Friends’ third big executive producer doesn’t have much in his IMDb in the years following the series’ end. There’s Joey, of course — but after that there’s only two telethons (Chabad Telethon) and a short (Who Ordered Tax?). After that he did something relatively rare, though: He left Hollywood. After Joey he moved back to his hometown of Boston and started working at Emerson College, where he’s taught classes like “Producing Pilots For Television” (he’s certainly an expert on that matter). He’s also headed up the school’s LA center, which places students in internships for Film, TV, music, media, and marketing. And now I’m kind of wishing I’d gone to Emerson.

It’s pretty well-known that young kids on television are often played by doubles (or triples!), and such was the case with Ross’ son Ben, who was played by Dylan and Cole Sprouse. These two went on to have their own impact on a generation, though: In 2005 they landed the lead roles in The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody on the Disney Channel. They became bonafide Disney stars (clothing lines and spinoffs all) and were arguably the most successful TV twins since Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

They walked away from it all, though — at least for now — in 2011 when they both began attending NYU. The biggest things that have landed them in the news since then? A tumblr experiment orchestrated by Cole, and the leakage of nude photos of Dylan (which Dylan handled very well).

More twins! This time Cali & Noelle Sheldon, who played baby Emma on the show. They didn’t land a Disney Channel show, but they’re still around. Aside from playing Emma Geller they’re apparently best known for a film called Novel Romance from 2006, in which they played (twist!) another very small child named Emma. They are approximately twelve years old now, and you can see a pic of them all grown up and tweenaged here.

Image: NBC

My absolute favorite thing about James Michael Tyler, aside from the fact that he played Gunther on Friends, is that his Wikipedia page has an entire section devoted to him “As Gunther.” Now that’s how you know you’ve made an impact.

And it’s not like he’s let go of Gunther: In 2009, to mark an anniversary of Friends, Tyler opened an actual Central Perk in London for two weeks. He’s also in an episode of Episodes, the plot of the episode surrounding LeBlanc’s unsuccessful attempts to get the Friends cast to reunite for a promotional video. They all shoot him down except Gunther.