Paula Newsome on Forever Being a Friend of "Friends"

Long before she was calling the shots on CBS' CSI: Vegas portraying team leader Maxine Roby, Paula Newsome was getting friendly with the cast of Friends. Yep, Newsome is one in a long list of Friends of Friends, only she was never credited for her appearance as a flight attendant in the show's final episode (May 6, 2004). As Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) awaits her departure to Paris, and the beginning of her new life, she receives a call from Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), who along with Ross (David Schwimmer) is desperate that Rachel cancel the trip and resume her life with Ross. After telling Rachel, "There's something wrong with the [plane's] left phalange!" her imaginary concerns are overheard by another passenger and soon, no one is on the plane.

"I didn't even know what a phalange was," laughed Newsome, recalling the role when MediaVillage asked her about it. "Is it really a Phil-Angie? That's how we decided to say it."

After all these years, Newsome, who delivered the line, "The plane doesn't even have a phalange," was happy to discover that phalange was actually Phoebe's go-to word for most imaginary things, including her pseudonym Regina Phalange. "I didn't know what it was," she chuckled.

Newsome's decision to accept the guest role (and not take credit) is also interesting. "I'm going tell you I was going through a horrible breakup at that period of my life," she explained. "It was a job I never normally would have taken because it was a guest spot. My agent said, 'They just called and offered this to you.' I was like, 'I'll take it!' I needed to get out of the house, and had to stop eating Haagen Dazs, right? So, I took the job.

"It wasn't a show that I watched a lot," she continued. "But I certainly knew how important it was, and what important television it was. I also knew of Jimmy Burrows of course."

Newsome's timing in accepting the role came at a pivotal one in the run of the show. It was the series' penultimate episode, and the secrecy as to whether or not the continued Ross and Rachel storyline would end happily was the question on everyone's lips. While recalling her time on the set, in retrospect, Newsome might have played a huge role in keeping that secret. "Oh, there was so much secrecy," she revealed. "So much secrecy! I remember one time Jennifer lost her script. It was somewhere on the stage, but it was so important. I was walking by, I looked down and I saw her script. I was like, 'Oh my God!' That was just as someone walked up behind me. It was an extra and they started yelling 'Here it is! Here it is!" It was very funny, but it was shrouded in so much secrecy."

Being recognized for her appearance on Friends "hasn't really happened," she told me. "Now, you know why I didn't want to be in the credits. I just wanted to go, get there, and go home. Really, just take a break from my Haagen Dazs.">

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