Digital Spy presents Friends Week - seven days of special features celebrating 20 years of the US sitcom that became a cultural phenomenon.

Ten years since the end of Friends, one voice still sticks in our head - oh my gaaaaaawd. Yep, Janice might not have been one of the Big Six, but she had a huge impact on the show (and on us). We caught up with the woman behind the voice - Maggie Wheeler - to reminisce about Janice, bemoan the fact that Janice and Joey never got together, find out where Janice is now and much more...

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What is your favourite Janice episode?

"I have a couple of different favourite moments. First of all, I love the Valentine's episode - I love the moment where she gets so mad at Chandler in the restaurant and she says, 'You could use these in your little puppet theatre of cruelty'. I loved all the writing. And the Yemen episode happens to be one of my all-time favourite lines: '15 Yemen Road, Yemen' was hilarious to say. And lives on, I think, in many people's memories as a very funny moment! But I kind of loved them all."

If you had to choose one of the members of the Friends cast to avoid by moving to Yemen, who would it be?

"Oh my goodness! Let's see. Who liked Janice the least? I don't know. Here's the beautiful thing about Janice - she really had no idea who didn't like her. She was fully unaware of that for the most part, so I don't think she would run to avoid anybody."

She was quite nice really wasn't she?

"Yes! She's a wonderful, big-hearted human."

Do you wish that she'd never had the 'Oh my God' catchphrase? You must get it in the street all the time.

"Oh my goodness, no, I don't ever wish that. I absolutely love that. I loved it for her and I certainly don't mind being known for it. I think it gave people so much joy and so much laughter, and it's become something that other people use in other ways, so I've got a lot of joy out of it."

My favourite 'Here's Janice' moment is when she's in the delivery room with Rachel and Ross. Do you have a favourite entrance?

"I absolutely loved doing that - that was the great hurrah, that labour scene. And there's another great unexpected moment when Janice sleeps with Ross. The audience had no idea - absolutely no idea - that I was coming. Whenever Janice appeared on the show I was always kept a secret up until the last moment, so they would put screens up and hide me. The audience had no idea until I actually walked through the door.

"Usually when you're watching you can see an actor standing off-stage before they walk through a door, because there's a little gap between this set and that set, but when I came on they kept a black curtain over that gap so that nobody could see me. The very first entrance I always made was a surprise to the audience, and on that episode the audience was so incredibly shocked that the reaction went on for [what] felt like ten minutes."

It was one of those things that everyone loved - when Janice appeared.

"Without a doubt. Every entrance I made on that show, I was aware, 'Don't get used to this - there's no other way in the world that you can make an entrance onto a set and have that much noise happen'."

Janice slept with Ross and Chandler, as you said - which character do you think would be better in bed?

"Well that's an interesting question! It's got to be Bing-a-Ling!"

But there was the whole hug and roll where Chandler knocked her off the bed...

"Yes! That was fantastic. Again, Janice was a little bit clueless about why those things were happening. We can look at it from the outside, but for Janice it was all love."



Are you upset that she never hooked up with Joey?

"Yes! Yes. As a matter of fact, absolutely. When Matt LeBlanc had his show Joey, I strongly suggested to the producers that they should bring me on. I think it was her last stone unturned."

What kind of couple do you think they would have been?

"Janice and Joey? Great for her - hell for him!"

They had their day of fun and that didn't seem to go so well.

"Yeah... but again, Janice thought it was a great success! Innocence is bliss!"

You don't speak like Janice - how did you come up with that voice? Was it something that you just did in your audition that stuck?

"I did do it in the audition. I grew up in New York City - I grew up surrounded by every sound that you imagine can come from a New Yorker. All of the different boroughs and all of the different sounds. Janice is kind of an amalgamation of people that I had come in contact with in my life. When I saw the script and it said 'fast-talking New Yorker' and I looked at the language, I just thought, 'Oh yeah, I know this girl, she talks like this'. When I went into the audition that is what I did - for better or worse!

"At the time I just thought, 'Well, I've got nothing to lose', and I really had no idea how they would react. In fact, when I opened my mouth and read the scene - 'I've bought you these socks, moose and squirrel, squirrel and moose, mix and match' - I could see that the creators of the show and the producer were sitting on the couch and they kind of sat up and they sat back together. Everybody sort of moved back and I thought, 'Oh dear, I think I've made the wrong choice - they're mortified at what I've done to their writing!' But really, that's not what happened. They were excited about it."

There are lots of rumours that you originally auditioned for Monica - is that true?

"No! I don't know where that came from - honestly, I don't know where that came from. I only auditioned for Janice. Unless there is some moment that is absolutely wiped from my memory, I did not audition for this show until Janice came across the desk!"

Everyone always asks about a Friends reunion or movie - what's your take on that? Is it best to leave it?

"Well, that's a big question - whether it's best to leave it - and I think I will leave that in the hands of the people who will decide it. Should it happen, I would be thrilled to participate. I love Janice - she's dear to my heart. It would be fun to resurrect her!"

Where do you think she would be now?

"Let's see! I think she is happy on Long Island with her third husband and she's getting her children through school and shopping online for some nice leopard-print boots for her daughter."

Do you think her son and Emma could end up getting married like she suggested?

"Great idea. I'm not sure Ross would allow it..."



Have you kept in touch with the cast? Do you ever see them? Especially Matthew Perry.

"From time to time we run into each other, but I haven't seen anyone recently. I was having lunch with a friend in a restaurant and Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc were having lunch at the next table, and we're always so happy to see each other when we do."

Do you have a favourite memory from your time on the show?

"I really loved working on that show. I have many high moments. That birth episode, the last episode, coming on the stage after sleeping with Ross. So many great and high moments.

"On the last night I worked on the show, I was hanging out with the cast in Lisa Kudrow's dressing room, all sitting around talking. And then I went down to shoot a scene, and when I came back the cast had filled my room with peonies in these incredibly beautiful orange vases that were really tall, up to my waist. There were just hundreds of flowers in my dressing room, and I was so touched by that."

What's the weirdest Friends thing you've seen? Have you had any weird fan experiences?

"No, I haven't. I really haven't. People stop me and ask me to say, 'Oh my God' - people want to hear the voice when they run into me, that happens a lot. Especially in airports!"

Why airports?

"I don't know. My family and I have a little joke that if I'm feeling particularly blue and nobody cares about me I should just go to the airport! That is where I am most recognised. No strange encounters, but having played a character that brought so much joy and laughter across the world, I've had a lot of really wonderful encounters with people for whom Friends has gotten them through a very tough time. I've heard some amazing stories about what the show has meant to people."

What sort of thing have you heard?

"I met a woman who went through a very difficult personal crisis and she was really bed-ridden for a long time and Friends got her through. I met a woman who had a brain injury while living in Europe and Friends got her through. Things like that. It's wonderful."

Friends is such a huge show that everyone seems to know everything about it - having worked on the show, is there anything we don't know?

"I would never go up against the people who know every last detail! There are people who have no connection to the show who know much more about it than I do. I did a series of voiceovers for a trivia video game and really that was an education for me. There were even questions about my character that I didn't know the answer to. But I think what people don't know - although I'm sure they've read about it - is just the incredible camaraderie on the set, the amazing give-and-take between the creators and the actors. It was a very rare, very collaborative environment. Really special."

Friends fans in the UK can watch the show on Comedy Central.

What is your favourite Janice moment? Let us know below!

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