Brenna Cooper
The actor who played Mr Heckles in Friends has claimed that he felt 'insulted' by the way he was treated during the reunion episode.
Fans of the iconic sitcom may or may not remember Larry Hankin's character, the killjoy downstairs neighbour who would show up to complain about noise and demand the group keep it down.
Despite only appearing in five episodes before being unceremoniously killed off via a heart attack in the second season, Mr Heckles has remained a popular character over the years - which means it was surely a no-brainer to invite him to the 2021 Friends: The Reunion special.
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Well, not exactly, according to Hankin.
Following the reunion premiere, the 86-year-old actor claimed that he was treated poorly by the producers at HBO - saying he wasn't asked to be a part of the show until the last moment.
On the day of filming, Hankin reported that he was kept apart from the rest of the cast.
"They wouldn’t let me talk to anybody," he claimed, adding that he'd been hoping to catch up with the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, and Matt LeBlanc.
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"They sent me to a dressing room upstairs and said (via an online interview), 'Go there and wait [until] we ask you to come down and be there on the show'.
"I am really angry at the people who produced the Friends reunion," Hankin added.
"It wasn't the producers of Friends, these are just people who wanted to make money.
"So I went down, did my little Friends thing and then boom, they just put me in a car out of there."
This isn't the only time that Hankin has spoken candidly about his time on the sitcom, and how much money he'd made from his appearance on the show, with the actor revealing in 2023 interview with Cracked that he had hoped to become a recurring character.
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"Overall, I did five episodes of Friends, and Mr. Heckles became very famous. Here’s the thing, though: On your sixth show, you became a recurring character, which meant a big bump in pay," he explained.
However, Hankin would never make it to six episodes, later being told that he was going to get killed off.
"I got a call from my agent saying, 'I have good news and bad news. First, Friends called for your fifth appearance…' In that moment, I thought, 'I have a house'," he contined.
"Then he said, 'You have a heart attack and die'.
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"Going into that shoot, I had a chip on my shoulder. I was going to let the producers know that I wasn’t happy."
LADbible Group has previously approached HBO for comment.