Who doesn't know Courteney Cox?
Even if you don't recognize her name, you definitely know her if you are one of the
countless people who has seen her hit sitcom Friends, on which she played Monica Geller.
But how did she find fame?
Here's Courteney Cox's stunning transformation.
Courteney Cox comes from a large family.
She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama as the youngest of four children, and she also has
nine step-siblings.
She told Dateline in 2004:
"I'm family-minded."
Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old and Cox told The Guardian that their divorce
was the most impactful memory of her childhood.
She had always been close with her father and struggled to come to terms with the breakup
by rebelling against her mother.
Cox told People:
"You have to blame someone for the divorce, and I thought my dad was the most fun person
in the world.
Looking back, I know those two didn't belong with each other forever."
Cox eventually came to terms with the split and she maintains a loving relationship with
both of her parents as an adult.
It seems like Courteney Cox didn't always have performance aspirations.
When she was a kid, it was her dream to become an architect.
After high school, Cox pursued her first career and went to Mount Vernon College to study
architecture.
According to MSN, she eventually decided it wasn't for her and took a risk by dropping
out of college to pursue her acting career.
Even though she abandoned her dreams of becoming an architect, Cox still retained an interest
in home design.
When renovating a home, she makes sure to oversee everything instead of leaving it in
the hands of a hired professional.
She told Elle Decor in 2011:
"I've been overseeing renovations of my homes for a long time, and I have strong opinions
about what I want and why."
Before Friends made her a household name, Courteney Cox was a model slowly working her
way up in the industry.
She landed commercials thanks to her modeling career, and even made history in a 1984 Tampax
ad.
Cox told Dateline:
"I'm the first girl to say the word 'period' on television."
From there, she starred in Bruce Springsteen's music video for "Dancing in the Dark," which,
according to her IMDb profile, was only her second acting credit.
Competition for the music video was intense.
When the director asked how much experience she had, Cox told People she bluntly said:
"Two days on As the World Turns, but I guarantee you can change that for me."
And that role completely changed her acting career.
The Springsteen music video led to more roles, including a spot in the Counting Crows' "Long
December" video, along with other TV acting spots.
In 1987, Cox began an arc as the girlfriend of Michael J. Fox's character on Family Ties,
firmly establishing her as a bonafide television star.
It's hard to imagine anyone but Jennifer Aniston in the iconic role of Rachel Green on Friends,
but the role was originally intended for Courteney Cox.
It was Cox who insisted on being cast as Monica Geller instead of as Rachel Green.
According to Cox, she and her Friends character have a lot in common but they aren't exactly
twins.
She told Elle:
"I'm very neat, but I'm not as clean as Monica.
I might be a little more surface neat.
Monica is also very, very competitive and I don't think I am."
Cox told Dateline that there was another aspect of Monica that she was drawn to, stating:
"I liked the fact that she was strong.I liked the fact that she just wasn't, you know, your
typical girl.
I really thought I should be Monica.
I really did."
On the podcast Off Camera with Sam Jones, Cox said that she simply related more to Monica
so she pushed to be cast in the role, paving the way for Aniston to take on the part of
Rachel instead.
Much like Monica Geller was the mom of the Friends gang, keeping Ross, Chandler, Phoebe,
Rachel, and Joey in line, Courteney Cox was considered to be the mother of the Friends
cast.
She became so widely known for her mothering that she actually got tired of being asked
about it in interviews.
A 1995 People cover story revealed that the cast saw Cox as something of a leader, calling
her in the words of Jennifer Aniston, quote, "the mother hen of the group."
Aniston told the magazine:
"She's explained that we have to watch out for each other [...] She knew the pressures
of being on a hit might drive us all apart."
Whether in the mom role or not, the castmates of Friends were close from the beginning.
Cox's co-star Lisa Kudrow told Oprah in 1995:
"These are five people that really honestly matter to me."
The world might know Courteney Cox as Monica Geller but horror fans remember her as one
of the stars of the Scream franchise.
While horror is certainly a far cry from Friends, Cox's Scream character, Gale Weathers, isn't
too far removed from Monica Geller.
Both of the characters are strong and determined to do things their own way.
"Alright so what do you say?”
“No!”
“Just do it!”
“Oh, I'm convinced."
Just as with the role of Monica, Cox had to fight for her Scream role, which she played
from 1996 to 2011 in the original film and its three sequels.
She told The Morning Call in 1997:
"Wes [Craven] didn't know if I could be b----y enough.
I said, 'Man, you don't know me.'"
The role changed how Hollywood viewed the actress and helped her break away from being
typecast as the good girl.
Cox stated:
"Before Gale, I always heard, 'She's way too friendly.
With movie roles, I got offered things like doctors and lawyers.
The nice one.
Now I'm getting scripts where I'm tough as nails.
I like that."
Friends isn't the only major television show Courteney Cox has been a star in.
She famously starred in Cougar Town from 2009 to 2015, which had runs on both NBC and TBS.
Cox admitted that she didn't quite know what to do with herself after the show wrapped.
She told Elle in 2015:
"Having Cougar Town end is sad just because it's something consistent and I love the people
I worked with.
But, truthfully, this is more depressing.
Because now what?
I don't have a series, but I also don't have a film that I'm passionate about."
When asked about other roles she would consider, Cox added:
"I'm getting a little anxious, but every time I read a script I'm surprised at how I just
don't relate at all.
I'm very specific."
But the actress followed up Cougar Town with spots on the television shows Barely Famous
and Drunk History, and she's appeared in numerous films such as 2016's Mothers and Daughters.
In future years, it's possible that Courteney Cox's notoriety as a director may outweigh
even her reputation as Monica Geller from Friends.
The actress has branched into directing, and she isn't afraid to put her own money on the
line to make her dreams come true.
To fund her first feature film in 2015, Just Before I Go, Cox put up $1.5 million of her
own money.
That might not sound like a lot considering that Cox, according to Business Insider, was
making $1 million per episode towards the end of her run on Friends, but it was still
a risky investment.
Cox felt that putting up her own money to fund the film was necessary and explained
to the Los Angeles Times:
"You really can't get a cast unless you have financing.
And you can't get financing unless you have a cast.
It's hard to get people to believe you can do it."
Courteney Cox and her ex husband, David Arquette, filed for divorce in 2012 after 13 years together.
According to TMZ, the couple said that they remained best friends and that they were committed
to raising their daughter, Coco, together.
Their dedication to co-parenting has been admirable, and Cox explained to People:
"You don't want to go in one house and have anything split.
You want it to be harmonious in both places."
It's clear that Cox's relationship with her daughter wasn't hurt by the breakup.
The two are very close.
Cox added that she's learned a lot from her daughter, stating:
"She's taught me patience.
Probably one of the biggest things she's taught me is to not take things personally, because
really it's not about us.
Whatever moods that she goes through where things happen, I'm the safest place to be
able to take it out on.
It's never about me, unless it's actually about me."
Courteney Cox has been with Snow Patrol musician Johnny McDaid since 2013.
While they got engaged the next year, they later split up but then reconciled.
Don't expect to hear wedding bells any time soon, though.
Cox is still happy where she's at but she's in no rush to walk down the aisle again, telling
People in 2018 that the term husband is nothing but a label and that:
"We're not married.
I'm married in my heart."
McDaid agreed that they don't have any need for a formal ceremony.
He added to Cox's statement, saying:
"We have one every morning when we look at each other.
My thoughts are never without Court.
She's my best friend.
She's my partner, in everything.
When I write her poems, it's just an extension of how I feel every second anyway, and that's
true for me."
Fans were quick to notice over the years that Courteney Cox's perpetually youthful face
wasn't entirely natural.
Cox made no secret of the fact that she was relying on cosmetic procedures to stay looking
as young as she had in her Friends days.
So in 2019, she went public with her decision to not only stop having them done but also
to dissolve all of her fillers, telling People she was, quote, "not a fan."
She stated:
"I would say it's a common thing you go through as you age, especially in Hollywood.
You have to accept getting older, and that's something that I had a hard time doing."
Cox added that she originally started getting fillers because she was unhappy with the way
she looked but that she didn't realize just how much they were altering her appearance.
Now she's embracing her natural beauty and is confident in how she looks.
She said of the decision:
"I think I am at a stage of my life where it's very easy to be comfortable with who
I am and who I've become and who I strive to be."
A lot of things may have changed in Courteney Cox's life over the years, but one thing has
remained steady are her friendships with her co-stars.
The cast of Friends still get together as often as they can.
Fans went wild in October 2019, when Cox posted a selfie on Instagram with Friends co-stars
Matt LeBlanc and Jennifer Aniston next to her.
Cox captioned the photo:
"A rare night and I love it."
Not long after that, Jennifer Aniston appeared on The Howard Stern Show and confirmed that
the core cast had all gotten together at Cox's place and had a blast together.
"We laughed so hard.”
“No one in that crew annoyed you?”
“Not one.”
“Really?”
“Lightning in a bottle."
Courteney Cox isn't the most prolific Instagram user but a quick look at her feed turns up
plenty of pictures of her castmates, proving that she takes the word friends very seriously.
While fans would no doubt love a Friends reboot, the chances of one happening are pretty slim.
Rumors of the hit sitcom revival have been shut down repeatedly, although Cox's co-star
and on-screen BFF Jennifer Aniston has said everyone would love for one to happen, but
they wouldn't want it to tarnish the show's reputation.
Aniston said on The Howard Stern Show in 2019:
"I really think there is an idea that if there is a reboot of the show, it won't be even
close to as good as what it was, so, why do it?
It would ruin it."
But it doesn't mean that the cast of Friends won't get together for another project.
Aniston followed up her Howard Stern appearance with an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show where she said that the Friends cast, including Courteney Cox, is definitely up
to something.
She said:
"Listen, we would love for there to be something, but we don't know what that something is.
So, we're just trying.
We're working on something."
It was later reported that Cox and her former co-stars would appear in an HBO Max reunion
special to talk about their experience filming their hit show.
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