Hey guys, Nikki Novak here in the Young Hollywood Studio, served fresh by Subway with Marta Kauffman and David Crane. You're you're both such amazing writers. We're talking before we started rolling. Neither of you are on Twitter.

I don't want to write out something I'm not getting paid for.

I'd have to try to be so funny. Yeah. It's It would make me miserable. I I feel the the pressure of, is it funny enough? Yeah.

And also, how many characters are you allowed? No, that's too that's too much pressure.

Well, I was gonna ask you, as a as writers, is it fair to ask people to sort of condense things into 140 characters?

No, unless you're like haiku writers.

No. There's some people very proficient at it though.

Yeah, we need we need a good like 30 pages. We need a half an hour to tell what we want to say.

To express it and get it all out. And to say it in the rhythm you want to to say it in. You know, you can't ellipses are very important. But you can't use them if you're not giving up those characters.

Yeah. And I know you guys recently talk, I know you've been asked a million times about a Friends reunion and you said absolutely no way. Right.

We'll say it here too if you want. No way.

Say it again.

No way. Not happening.

Stop asking people. Stop asking me actors. Stop asking these two, it's not gonna happen.

Yeah. As much as it's up to us, no, we shouldn't.

It is up to you. Yeah. Alright. Well, it really is 'cause we've asked the actors and they say that, that it really is up to the to the creators of the writers.

We feel as though we ended the show on the perfect note. Yeah. It was like if and if you leave people wanting more, yeah, they'll want more. And you know, the worst thing you could do is give them more.

Is to give them more. 'Cause yeah, then they've got more and suddenly then they'd be going, I don't know, it wasn't. Is that true?

And I like to The show, yeah. The show was about the time in your life when your friends are your family. And once you start having your own family, it's not that time anymore. So you can't do the show again. It's over. It's done. That time's over.

People just won't accept that though. I and you know what it is? I think part of it is also it's on thank God, on TV all the time.

All the time. So if you want to if you want Friends, there's 236 episodes of it. Enjoy.

Right. Do you write for particular actors ever or do you write And then the actor comes later.

Once you cast something and and the actor breathes life into the character that you heard in your head a certain way, you then have to adapt um so that it makes sense with that human being.

Who has surprised you the most? That you wrote it one way and it came out a totally different way because of the actor?

Matt, Matt LeBlanc. Yeah, he was the most surprising 'cause he brought so much heart to the character, which you yeah.

Yeah, I mean, Joey was when we originally wrote Joey, he wasn't that sweet. He also wasn't dumb.

He wasn't dumb, but he's so funny dumb. Matt plays that so well. Not that Matt's dumb.

Not that Matt's dumb. Uh, he plays it so well uh, that

Well, because it can be when someone does play dumb, it can be kind of like oh.

Such innocence. Yeah. No, and he gives Joey such specificity.

Right. And then who has been somebody who took your words so literally and and just kept it exactly the way you envisioned it?

No, it's it's different. Every actor and including, you know, the six of them had their own process. Lisa Kudrow was someone who at the table read, she nailed it. Nailed it. Just what we thought it would be. Jennifer table reads were not her strength. But it always ended where you wanted it to go.

Wow.

So, you know, they all had their process. And in terms of their voices, we were lucky enough that we cast six actors with very specific. I mean, very specific. Matt Yeah. Matthew Perry. He just has such a specific way of handling a line and a joke. Uh, and so very early on, we were we heard that voice in our heads as we're writing and to to tailor to it. But we also knew, if we wanted him to stress this word, we better underline that word.

You played a trick on him?

We did. We knew he won't if we underline this, he's not gonna do it. So we have to not underline this and start like, well, let's see what happens if we underline that. He's a rebel.

Who are people that you you watch and admire, sort of as actors, as other producers, you know, writers?

Let me just James L. Brooks spoke this morning. That's one of my heroes. One of my heroes. I wish I'd written most of the movies he wrote. Um, because he's so can walk the line between comedy and drama and and he's my hero.

And your your hero?

Oh, who's my hero? Of film of TV of No. I don't know. I'm not I'm not It feels like there are too many names going through my head. So I'm not gonna

What was the first one?

No, I don't know. I don't know.

No pressure with us. Don't. Yes. This was such a pleasure.

Wait, I'm going out on I don't know. I don't know.

Alright. That's under 140 characters.

Alright. I don't know. Yes. That's why I'm not on Twitter. I can't handle the pressure. It's too much pressure.