Who Is the Bartender On “Friends”?



James Michael Tyler might not be one of the first people to cross your mind when you think of the iconic sitcom Friends, but he should be. Tyler played one of the quirkiest characters on the show, Gunther. Gunther pined for Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) for all 10 seasons, but we never learned much about him aside from the fact that he worked as a barista at the group’s hangout, Central Perk. Tyler’s role on the show seems particularly coincidental when you hear that he had a job at a coffee shop called The Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood. While he also had a Master of Fine Arts in acting, that’s not what got him the role. He had waited on the assistant director, Joel Wang, who ended up asking Tyler if he would just come to the set and stand by the espresso machine and pretend like he was working it, so it would look authentic. At the time, Tyler thought the gig would only last a few episodes, but he ended up standing at the espresso machine for a decade. Oddly enough, he never made a single cup of coffee on the show. In fact, the espresso machine wasn’t even plugged in. While his MFA didn't get Tyler on the set, it did help transform Gunther into a bigger character than the nameless extra he was originally intended to be. After one-and-a-half seasons of pretending to make coffee, Tyler said that the show's co-creator, Marta Kauffman, asked if he had any acting experience. "I said, 'Yeah, I have a Master of Fine Arts in acting, actually...' And she said, 'That's really good to know.’" The following week, Gunther had a name and his first line, and the rest is Friends history.