Ready to feel really, really old?
As of 2018, Friends has been off the air for 14 years.
That means Ross and Rachel's baby Emma isn't a baby anymore.
And the actresses who played her are 16 years old.
While Hollywood still keeps tabs on the rest of the Friends gang, Noelle and Cali Sheldon
have drifted into relative obscurity after starring as Emma.
Quite a feat, considering that Today reported that 15 million viewers tuned in for each
season of Friends, but in syndication, and streaming, the show draws 16 million weekly
viewers.
It's time we caught up with the artists formerly known as little Emma.
No precious memories
By the time Friends wrapped, Noelle and Cali weren't even two years old.
And while they know they starred in one of the most popular TV shows of all time, the
girls don't recall any of it.
Cali told Bustle,
"I don't remember anything about being on the show, but I've seen the pictures."
Thankfully, their mom, Gretchen Carpenter, remembers everything, telling the site,
"Everyone was really, really nice to Noelle and Cali, and treated them like little princesses
on the set.
Friends filmed before a live audience, and Cali and Noelle would come out, and they would
be waving and engaging with the live audience."
A rite of passage
Friends was an upbeat network sitcom, but it featured some pretty adult storylines.
The main characters were six 20-somethings living in New York City, after all.
And because of that, Carpenter didn't let her young girls watch the show.
At 12 years old, Noelle told Entertainment Tonight,
"We've seen one full episode, which was 'The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits.'"
She explained the house rules on viewing episodes, saying,
"My mom said we can watch them when we're 13.”
And Cali joked that when they hit the magic age:
"24 hour Friends marathon!"
Staying grounded in Tinseltown
As child actors living in Los Angeles, you might imagine it would be hard to stay grounded,
especially after starring on a show like Friends.
But Carpenter told Bustle,
"Our girls go to a normal school, and they go on auditions once in a while, but we don't
make it our top priority."
Cali filled the mag in on her career mindset, saying,
"I'm not very competitive because you usually don't get the roles, and if you do, it's cool,
but if you don't it's nothing to be sad about, because the person who got it is going to
do great."
Cali's big plans
Although the Sheldon twins started working much earlier than the rest of us, acting isn't
actually their end goal.
Cali told Bustle when she was just 12,
"First I want to go to UCLA and get a degree in biochemistry so I can become a chemist
and cure cancer."
But she doesn't stop there.
She said,
"Then I want to petition for women to be allowed into a football league."
And after that, she says she wants to go on to "write a book."
Noelle keeps it loose
While her sister has some big aspirations, Noelle has set her sights on something very
different, and perhaps inspired by her TV mom Rachel's job at Central Perk.
She told Bustle,
"I want to be a barista when I'm 18."
Taking her time to figure things out when she gets there, she admitted,
"I don't know what else after that."
They'll never forget Emma
Like all the characters of Friends, baby Emma is firmly cemented into pop culture.
While Noelle and Cali may not exactly remember playing the role of Ross and Rachel's child,
Emma will always be a part of their lives.
Some former child actors may wish to forget the parts that first made them famous, but
that's not the case for the Sheldon sisters.
Noelle shared a picture of the two sitting on the iconic Central Perk couch, captioning
the photo: "The one where Emma got cloned."
The girls also posed in front of the Central Perk sign, which Cali posted, writing: "Flashbacks
to '03."
Fans were excited to see baby Emma all grown up, times two, with one commenter posting,
"Now, my life is complete."