Friends' star-studded post-Super Bowl episode turns 25: Matthew Perry recruited guest-star Julia Roberts via fax

The Hollywood Reporter

The hourlong "The One After the Superbowl" aired on Jan. 28, 1996 after Super Bowl XXX, attracting nearly 53 million viewers and featuring a star-studded guest cast of Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Brooke Shields, Chris Isaak, Fred Willard and Dan Castellaneta. “We decided to flip the script,” says then-NBC Entertainment president Warren Littlefield, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Instead of trying a new show, we asked ourselves, ‘Why don’t we just give people what they want?’ There was nothing hotter than Friends.” Co-creators Marta Kauffman and Kevin Bright recalled how Perry recruited Roberts with some flirting via Fax. The guest appearance led to them briefly dating. "Do you know the story of how we got her? Matthew asked her to be on the show. She wrote back to him, 'Write me a paper on quantum physics and I'll do it.' My understanding is that Matthew went away and wrote a paper and faxed it to her the next day," said Bright.