There’s no question that “Friends” became one of the most beloved sitcoms ever in large part due to its irreplaceable ensemble. Creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane cast the perfect actors for the six main roles, and while the writing on the show was always a big part of its charm, the writers had some incredible talent on which to rely. It wasn’t just that each actor brought their own sensibility to their roles, either. The group was clearly tight-knit off-screen, which only helped their on-screen chemistry and made the show all the more better.
As such, when the “Friends” finale aired in 2004, it was a hugely emotional moment for everybody, the cast included. It’s not surprising to learn, then, that in order to remember their time on the long-running series, the group took mementos from the set and spoke about their souvenirs in a 2021 People interview ahead of the “Friends” reunion.
During the interview, Chandler actor Matthew Perry revealed he’d taken a cookie jar, which he gave to Phoebe actress Lisa Kudrow as a parting gift. The prop, which sat next to the fridge in Monica’s (Courteney Cox) apartment, was meaningful to both Perry and Kudrow as it represented a shared joke. But it turns out Perry, who passed away in October 2023 at age 54, also hid another surprise inside the prop that Kudrow didn’t find for some time.
Matthew Perry’s secret gift within a gift
Matthew Perry confirmed he’d gifted Lisa Kudrow with the cookie jar from Monica’s kitchen in an interview with Entertainment Weekly all the way back in 2004, when “Friends” was wrapping up. “There’s a cookie jar that has a clock on it that was over the fridge,” he explained. “One time I asked Lisa Kudrow, ‘What time is it?’ and she looked up at that to tell me the time and we all laughed really hard, so I made arrangements to give it to her.”
Kudrow spoke further about the gift in a 2020 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, saying, “The first thing I asked was, ‘This is so nice. Did you get permission?'” before revealing that her car would get searched every night when she left the Warner Bros. lot. But it seems Perry gave Kudrow more than this cute keepsake, though it took some time for her to find the other part of his gift.
After Perry’s passing, the actress discovered something inside the cookie jar and spoke about it during a January 2025 appearance on (via People) “The Drew Barrymore Show.” Kudrow was asked whether she’d stolen anything from the set, which led to a conversation about the cookie jar, during which she revealed she’d discovered a note from her former co-star. “Matthew gave that to me at the end of our last episode,” she said. “I had recently found the note that he had in it for me. I hadn’t opened it up or looked inside of it … He had a note in there, and I forgot about it.” While she understandably chose to keep the contents of the note to herself, she did tell Barrymore, “Timing is everything.”