Friends scripts of iconic wedding episodes up for auction – 25 years after being found in London bin
Two scripts from popular US sitcom Friends are up for auction in Hertfordshire – 25 years after they were found in a bin.
It’s believed the scripts for both parts of The One With Ross’ Wedding were meant to be destroyed to keep season four’s famous finale – in which Ross says the wrong name at the altar – a secret.
While their value has been estimated at up to £800, the auctioneer has told Sky News it has already had higher bids and is running out of phonelines ahead of Friday’s sale due to the amount of interest.
Both episodes were filmed and set in London and the scripts were found a couple of weeks after all the scenes had been wrapped up at Fountain Studios in Wembley by a now-retired Londoner in 1998.
“It was part of my job to ensure everything was tidy and no rubbish was left around,” said the 60-year-old, who worked in admin support and helped to distribute tickets for the studio audience.
“I wasn’t sure what to do with them so just put them in my office drawer. I remember wondering which member of the cast they might have belonged to.”
He left his job in 1999 and “swept everything into a big cardboard box” when clearing his desk, admitting he forgot the scripts were among the pile of paperwork.
After two months, he checked through the box and remembered the scripts, which he put into his bedside drawer – where they have been ever since.
A scene from the episodes. Pic: Hanson Ross
Part of the script. Pic: Hanson Ross
“I could have quite easily thrown them out,” he said.
“Recently I’ve been clearing my house ahead of a move and I came across them again.”
While visiting family in Hertfordshire recently, he decided to take the scripts for valuation at auctioneers Hanson Ross, in Royston.
While it’s not clear who the scripts belonged to, they have the name John Lanzer on them, who was a British set designer.
A ticket for the studio audience. Pic: Hanson Ross
The firm’s head of operations, Amanda Butler, said they were “amazed” when they saw what he had brought in.
“It’s an iconic pair of episodes, not only were they shot in London but they included Fergie [Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York], Hugh Laurie, Jennifer Saunders,” she told Sky News.
Part of the surge of interest in the items, she believes, is down to Matthew Perry’s death, who played loveable Chandler Bing in the show.
“Friends has been back in the news and I think that a whole generation of young people have started to watch it, so it’s having a resurgence,” she said.
The scripts come with a set of DVDs and a keyring that the vendor says was given to production staff. Pic: Hanson Ross
The auctioneers estimate they could go for between £600-£800, but Ms Butler said the show’s global appeal is so huge that “who knows where the hammer may fall”.
“We’ve definitely had higher bids already, it’s going to be one to watch,” she said, adding that they’re asking potential bidders to register online rather than call their swamped phonelines.
The unnamed 60-year-old discoverer said the scripts “deserve to be owned by a huge Friends fan”, as he admitted he’s not crazy about the show.
Read more:
Matthew Perry ‘stopped Chandler cheating on Monica’
Chandler Bing’s funniest jokes in Friends – including improvisations
“I don’t dislike the show, but I only recently watched the episodes I have the scripts for, American humour is different to ours,” he said.
“It will be exciting to see what they make at auction.”
The auction can be watched live on the Hanson Ross website on Friday, with the scripts expected at around midday.
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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