Matt LeBlanc found inspiration for his iconic Friends character Joey Tribbiani in an unlikely place.
“He used to sit up in the stands, you know, [and] watch our rehearsals and stuff for weeks to sort of just see it — see how I was playing Joey Russo,” Joey Lawrence exclusively told Us Weekly on August 20, while promoting The Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency graphic novel along with brothers Matthew and Andy Lawrence.
According to the Brotherly Love actor, LeBlanc, 58, mirrored ladies man Joseph Francis Tribbiani Jr. off Blossoms’ Russo, a lovable dimwit who played baseball and was known for his signature catch phrase, “Whoa.” Of course, Friends fans remember equally lovable Tribbiani, another dimwit who, instead of playing baseball, was an aspiring actor who chased women and relied on his signature phrase, “How you doing?”
“The reason why [I played the character like] that is because they wanted a 25-year-old version, right?” Lawrence, 49, continued. “And I was only 15 at the time … Matt’s a lot older than me, but that’s what they did. And they had that character on the show [Friends], I feel like, to be sort of girl crazy, or woman crazy, for Joey Tribbiani. But it was girl crazy for Joey Russo, you know? I mean, you have to be very innocent with that — it can’t be a lecherous thing.”
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Lawrence continued, “I mean, [LeBlanc] went on and did amazing things with it, obviously, [and] won Emmys. I never won an Emmy.”
Lawrence’s brother Andy recalled to Us an interaction between LeBlanc and his brother, Joey.
“You remember when you guys ran into each other about a year or two ago, at that Porsche dealership?” he asked. “It was the funniest thing ever. Both Joey and Matt were, like, walking around the Porsche, like, looking at each other, eyeing each other … eyeing the car [and] nodding at each other. It was the funniest interaction.”
Joey did, in fact, remember the interaction with the Friends star, telling Us, “Yep, yep. And Matt comes over to me and goes, ‘How you doing?’ I’m like, ‘How are you doing?’ And it was really wild because, you know, you haven’t seen him a lot … the last we hung out was, you know, 1992 or 1993. It’s crazy, man.”
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Joey concedes that he “doesn’t know” if LeBlanc “will ever admit” that his Blossoms character inspired the actor’s Tribbiani portrayal.
“No Joke, [he used] a yellow memo pad, for real,” Joey says of LeBlanc taking notes on his Russo performance. “I don’t know whether he’ll ever admit that. I don’t say [this] for any other reason than that that’s the connection we had, you know?”
He continued, “I was playing [Russo] very innocent. I could get away with a lot of stuff if I did that, you know?”
