Jean-Claude Van Damme gets brutally honest about his Friends cameo, detailing why he isn’t a fan of it. The global action star, known for Street Fighter and other movies in the genre, was among the first celebrity guests. Van Damme appeared in the Friends season 2 episode “The One After the Super Bowl: Part 2” as a fictionalized version of himself, causing a rift between Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox) as they were both interested in him.
Looking back on his cameo in comments to the New York Post, Van Damme explains why he isn’t fond of his Friends cameo. The actor criticizes his performance, saying that he looks “so like a ham”, and adds that he’s ashamed of himself. Van Damme was speaking about the cameo in the context of promoting his Irish whiskey brand, Old Oak, and recalls that he didn’t know much about Friends before his agent told him about it. Read Van Damme’s quote below:
My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ […] It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself. So then I was on the set, and those girls, they go and they kiss me and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do … It was strange. They were very nice.
I didn’t know much about the show. So when I go to the show, I see those two beautiful girls and they say this is the hottest show right now in the world. So I was very glad. And my agent said, “You have to do an episode with them. So you’re going to play this guy.”
A Friends Director Claimed Van-Damme Was Difficult To Work With
Michael Lembeck, who directed season 2’s Super Bowl episodes, has claimed that Van Damme was difficult on the set of Friends. As part of a 2021 oral history of the Super Bowl two-parter, Lembeck shared his recollections of Van Damme’s cameo. The director recalled the actor as being unprepared and unprofessional, while also mentioning an incident where he says that Van Damme made both Aniston and Cox uncomfortable.
In deleted scenes that didn’t air as part of the original broadcast, and which the actor also mentions above, Van Damme kisses Rachel and Monica. The director claimed that Van Damme used his tongue during the kissing scenes, leading both Aniston and Cox to ask Lembeck to tell Van Damme to stop doing that. Lembeck claimed that he had to tell Van Damme twice, with his second warning being a little firmer.
Van Damme has not commented on Lembeck’s remarks, nor has any of the Friends cast. But in his new comments, the actor does talk about how strange his cameo was. While it may not be as memorable of the likes of Julia Roberts’ cameo in the same episode, Van Damme’s appearance along with the future Oscar winner opened the doors for other big names to appear across its eight seasons, ranging from Bruce Willis to George Clooney to Winona Ryder, among many others.
