VAN NUYS, Calif. — “Friends,” says actor Rocco Reed, who plays one of the six title roles, “has the broadest spectrum of all the parodies. Everybody can find some humor in it.” (photo gallery)
The 10-season sitcom appealed to a wider than usual swath of the American public, even more so than Seinfeld. “We try to play into that fan base,” says director Lee Roy Myers, “and it is a big fan base.”
Myers, who created New Sensations’ current string of parody hits (The Office, Scrubs, released; Seinfeld coming up) is jazzed about the sets in the small Van Nuys studio: meticulous recreations of a New York apartment and a coffee shop that looks so real you could order a latte.
The first thing he’ll shoot today — the second of a three-day shoot — is the final scene: “the six friends wrapping it up with the classic sitcom cliffhanger.”
Although they’re being paid the tiniest fraction of the million bucks per episode the show’s stars raked in for its last two seasons, the XXX cast is giddily enthusiastic about recreating their roles.
“This is one of the best ensemble casts for a parody we could possibly have gotten,” Myers says. “We’ve done a lot of run-throughs. They get it, and they’re great. Kayla Paige: spot-on Jennifer Aniston. She’s got it down.”
Paige says that when production manager Wicked Sister told her they wanted her to play Rachelle, “I actually started jumping up and down in her office, I was so excited. I get ‘Jennifer Aniston’ a lot, a lot of people think I look like her.”
The parody’s storyline takes bits from different episodes, through the season. One big scene, to be shot later today, is a bachelorette party featuring male stripper Evan Stone. He’s the Ugly Naked Guy the friends are always seeing in the apartment across the way — except here he’s become the Hot Naked Guy. He’ll have sex with the three main girls.
Jordan Kingsley, who plays Phoebe or “Freebie,” says she watched Friends “from the beginning. I’m a big fan.” Her first sex scene was yesterday, with Reed. “We were on the couch last night at three in the morning.”
Myers feels that Vanessa Naughty, a newcomer from Florida with “a gravelly, sexy voice… is just perfect as ‘Moanica.” A latecomer to Friends fandom, Vanessa is catching up on Internet reruns in the makeup room.
“It’s an interesting part but it’s not me,” she says. “I’m not at all neurotic, and super-super cleanly.” This is her first feature and also her first girl-girl scene.
Reed is cast as Joey, or “Joe,” and tall, gangly Chris Strokes impersonates “Sandler.” Anthony Rosano plays “Russ.” Says Myers, “He can do spot-on impressions of about 150 different TV characters. His comic timing is great.”
Friends: A XXX Parody will be released later this year.
For a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, click here.
