[on discovering he was famous and recognizable] I was like, 'I've got to get a house. I need a house with a gate, because I need to be able to hide'. It's funny - nowadays people that are famous get chased by paparazzi. They have this fame, but they don't have the money to hide from it.

[as 'Friends' ended] I had quit smoking for four years, and in that final two weeks I started again because we were so aware that our time together was coming to an end. We would steal away these little moments. 'Hey, let's go hang out. Let's go sit in my room'. It was really... a lot of Kleenex.

[performing on 'Friends'] In between all the jokes, there was this emotional thread. You cared about these people. You were invested in these relationships. You can't get enough of these people. Why? No one could describe their passion for it. Everyone worked really hard. Lisa Kudrow said it best. She said that she worked harder on these relationships than she did on her marriage.

I got a callback and had a studio test. It was between me and this guy - his name was Yeager, I think. He was dressed in a denim jacket, jeans, cowboy boots. I think he had a cowboy hat with him, but he didn't have it on. I looked at him and thought, One of us is way off the mark. I hope it's you.

I was practicing lines with an actor friend of mine, and he said, 'This show ['Friends'] is all about a group of friends, so we should go out tonight and get drunk, as if we were friends. We should just keep that in mind'. So we went out, and I fell down and skinned my nose really badly, I went to the audition with a huge scab on my face.

[on his new series 'Episodes'] I think I got my due on 'Friends'. That was the greatest ten years of my life. It was critically successful, financially successful, I slept in my own bed every night, we didn't have to travel. But this is fun, too. Different gig.

(1996, on his family) We're blue collar from Newton, Mass. My mom's from Italy, and my father wasn't around. I knew he had gone to Vietnam, but I didn't know if he was dead or MIA, and I knew it would make my mom sad to talk about it, so I never asked. On Christmas morning, the year I was eight, I come running downstairs, and on the couch is this guy wearing Army fatigues with long hair. He looked like Jesus Christ. I see his name on his shirt, LeBlanc. All I could think was, he's alive, he's come back, he's going to live with us, and I'm going to have a dad! So of course I ran to him. flung myself on him.. .and if there's one moment in my life I could replay, that would be it. Because what I really should have said was. 'Hey, man, where the fuck have you been?' He never came to live with us. My mother remarried a few years later.

(1996, on getting into acting) One weekend I went down to New York City and I met this really cute girl and she said, 'I have an audition, want to go with me?' And I went with her, and her manager had me read some commercials and signed me. So I moved to New York and got a commercial right away. I thought, hey, this shit's easy, I'm gonna be huge! Of course, that didn't happen, and I lived in a transient hotel for a couple of years.

(1996) The most amazing thing about getting famous is this: When I was broke and couldn't afford anything, nobody gave a shit. Now that I have some money, Ray Ban sends me dozens of pairs of glasses. They even put my prescription in. Isn't that the craziest thing?

(On his film, Ed) I know, I know. Everyone told me, 'Don't do the monkey movie, don't do it.'

I really like the half-hour comedy. I really do. I know people that are in movies all the time and they, you know, they don't see their families as much. And that takes its toll over time. And I don't want to be one of those families. I want to sleep in my own bed every night. I want to, you know, help the kids with homework. And I like that. That's fun.