Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Many stars made appearances on the hit show Friends throughout its run, but Jean-Claude Van Damme thought his one-episode stint in 1996 was quite embarrassing.
In the episode titled “The One After the Super Bowl: Part 2,” the actor played himself opposite Jennifer Aniston‘s Rachel and Courteney Cox‘s Monica. In the episode, Rachel and Monica both develop a crush on Jean-Claude Van Damme after he starts filming a movie in New York City. But when Rachel approaches him first since Monica is too shy, it leads to a fight between the duo about who gets to go on a date with him.
Now, looking back, Van Damme told the New York Post in a recent interview, “My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ … It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself. So, then I was on the set, and those girls, they go, and they kiss me, and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do … It was strange. They were very nice.”
(L-R) Courteney Cox, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jennifer Aniston
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Van Damme admitted that he actually didn’t know much about the show, which ran from 1994 to 2004, before making an appearance in its second season.
“So, when I go to the show, I see those two beautiful girls, and they say this is the hottest show right now in the world. So, I was very glad,” the Kickboxer star recalled. “And my agent said, ‘You have to do an episode with them. So you’re going to play this guy.’”
Though he isn’t the biggest fan of his cameo in the series, the actor said the experience overall “was a good memory.”
“They were very open because they did the show every day. So for them, I enter into a place where everything is working like a very well-trained mechanic engine,” he added. “It was amazing.”
Friends also starred Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc.
