Debi Mazar: Forever a Friend of "Friends"

When it comes leaving your mark in a short of amount of screen time, actor Debi Mazar should be teaching a master class.  Widely known for her big-screen roles in Goodfellas, Singles, Batman Forever and Empire Records and on TV courtesy of L.A. Law, Entourage, Dancing with the Stars, and most recently SyFy’s Happy and TV Land’s Younger, Mazar’s brash New York accent has served her well.  But nowhere did it come in handier than in 2002 when she solidified her status as a Friend of Friends.  In The One Where Rachel Has a Baby (Season 8, Episode 23) Mazar made a lasting impression as Doreen, one of a procession of expectant mothers paraded before Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) while she endured 21 hours of labor.  What made Mazar so memorable as one of the expectant mothers was her extremely colorful battles with her husband, while Rachel lay helpless in a nearby hospital bed.

“You sick bastard!”  “You sick son-of-a-bitch!” and “[You] fat pervert!” were just a few of the verbal attacks expertly launched by Mazar during the scene.  But what a lot of people don’t realize is the role was a case of art imitating life.  “I was excited to do it because I loved the comedy and the writing,” laughed Mazar when MediaVillage talked with her about the role.  “And I was hugely pregnant for real!  Yes, that was my actual stomach!

“Nobody was hiring me at that point because when you're that pregnant you become an insurance risk,” she continued.  “So, to be able to go on a show, play pregnant and have fun with it, then get to converse and be funny in a hospital room was great.  Jennifer Aniston is such a great comedian, and to have her on the other side of me going, ‘Oh my God,’ was really funny.  I never got to see what she was doing while we shot as she was on the other side of the curtain.”

Steve Gidlow

Steve Gidlow, a long-time columnist for MediaVillage ("Behind the Scenes in Hollywood"), has written about television and pop culture since 1994, beginning in Australia.  Since moving to Hollywood in 1997, Steve has focused on celebrity interv… read more