‘Friends’ alum Adam Goldberg slams show for its ‘insane’ lack of diversity: ‘Incredibly unrealistic’
nypost.comthe sitcom for barely casting any people of color.“In terms of diversity, looking back, it seems insane,” the 53-year-old said in an interview with The Independent published Sunday. “I’ve heard black people speak about this and it’s like, you never expected to see yourself, so when you didn’t, it was not a surprise, and you ended up identifying to characters, irrespective of their race,” he added.
Goldberg said that it was “the norm” at the time for shows like “Friends” — which aired on NBC from 1994 to 2004 — to exhibit “such a lack of diversity.” at that time.“I mean, I spent a lot of my career complaining about how Italians can play Jews,” he said. “You see [Robert] De Niro play Jews but you very rarely see someone who’s a known Jewish actor playing Italian.“So that’s where my head was at.
Or I would get feedback about not being all-American enough, which, you know, if you were to say that to somebody now you’d probably be fired.
Or maybe not, because all-American has become such a derisive term.”Goldberg added, “The entire culture was like that, and television was just an amplification of that culture.”The “Saving Private Ryan” star also questioned “how the hell” the main characters in the sitcom — played by Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry — were able to afford living in NYC.“Their apartment is massive, and it’s an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of New York,” he said.
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