‘Friends’ star Maggie Wheeler recalls handling secret Janice cameos on set

Friends actress Maggie Wheeler, known for her role of Janice Hosenstein and her famous dialogue, “Oh. My. God,” reflected on her memorable time on set.

In a recent episode of Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko, Wheeler revealed how the crew managed to surprise the in-studio and at-home audience with her cameos.

The actress told the interviewer that since the in-studio audience was “an important characteristic” for her entrances the crew would “keep [her] hidden.”

“I wasn’t allowed to even really wander around craft services. They made me stay in my dressing room,” she explained.

The scenes where she used to act, Wheeler would sneak down on set, and production team would hide her entrance with black scrim.

“The audience wouldn’t see me until the door opened, and I walked in,” she said.

The star shared that crew would come up with many different ways to hide her depending on the scene. “It was always a great surprise.”

Wheeler recalled the scene where she received the most gasps, howls and laughter, season five episode 12, titled The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh, where Janice spends the night with David Schwimmer’s Ross.

“That was a huge build up, a huge secret,” she said. “Nobody could have imagined what was going on, and the cast kept saying [to Ross], ‘Where were you, where were you, where were you?’ And they really just milked it until the bitter end. And then when I walked in, the audience went nuts.”

Wheeler appeared in every season of Friends, except the sixth one where only her voice was heard. She played the role of Mathew Perry’s Chandler on-and-off over-the-top New Yorker girlfriend.