The Ashcan

Matt LeBlanc is dead. Long live Matt LeBlanc.

Posted on 10. Jan, 2011 by Simon in Pop Culture, Television

Quick; who is the most successful actor or actress to come out of the sitcom Friends?

My guess is that 90 per cent of you replied Jennifer Aniston (which is crazy, even if it’s true. Here are all the movies Aniston has done since 2005: Derailed, Rumour Has It, Friends with Money, The Break-Up, Dirt, Management, Marley & Me, He’s Just Not That Into You, Love Happens, The Bounty Hunter, The Switch, Just Go With It. That’s more bombs than the entire axis-of-evil combined! But I digress). Followed by 5 per cent saying Courtney Cox, then 3 per cent Lisa Kudrow and 2 per cent Matthew Perry.

I would further wager approximately -15 per cent of you thought David Schwimmer, and 0 per cent Matt LeBlanc.

Which is curious, since LeBlanc was the only character to get a spin-off from one of the most successful television shows of all time. In retrospect, a poor network decision (ok fine, probably not in retrospect — everyone knew that show would be awful).

Since the Hindenburg that was Joey, LeBlanc has been mostly under the radar. His IMDB page reads like that of a barista at an L.A. Trader Joe’s, the highlight probably being his starring role in Lost In Space. Yes, that’s the highlight.

This is kind of a shame. I mean, I was never a huge Friends fan, but I’ve probably seen almost every episode thanks to syndication and sharing the remote with other people. I always thought LeBlanc did a good job as Joey, one of the dumbest characters ever written.

Unless you are genuinely developmentally challenged in some way or form, it can’t be easy playing a character that dense for a decade and still managing a shred of charm, or dignity, or endearing nature. Imagine Tom Hanks had to play Forrest Gump not for 2 hours once, but 2.5 hours every week for 10 years? Would we think of Hanks the same way?

Now, I’m not saying LeBlanc can act in the same league as Hanks. I’m not even saying LeBlanc can act, really. But although Joey was never my favourite character on Friends, he easily could have been the most annoying — yet he never was. And for that at least I think LeBlanc deserves some credit.

It’s with a modicum of interest that I anticipate the return of Matt LeBlanc to television. He will star — as himself — in a BBC sitcom created by Friends writer David Crane and Mad About You penmen Jeffrey Klarik — arguably the dudes behind two of the most quintessential network sitcoms of the 90′s.

Most interesting however is the shows (titled Episodes) premise: LeBlanc plays himself, poorly cast to star in a the American version of a British sitcom being ported to Hollywood (think behind the scenes of The Office).

Larry David famously used the meta card to much success when he played a fictionalized version of himself for HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. David then one upped it when he wrote a Seinfeld reunion into the finale of Curb last year, then played the role of George for a few scenes on the show-in-a-show, which was further mind blowing because Costanza’s character was originally written to be based on Larry David.

Confused yet? Chea. Somehow though, the Seinfeld concept made for incredibly funny television, even further nuanced because this fake reunion was the closest thing to a real Seinfeld reunion the world would ever get. It could have been cloying, or masturbatory, or idiotic. But David knocked it out of the park. Still, that was Larry David. He’s considered a comic genius.

Matt LeBlanc is Joey.

Ah, but we have perhaps a more accurate example to perhaps grasp what we might expect from Episodes. In 2008, Jean Claude Van Damme starred in JCVD, a movie in which he played himself and included perhaps the most captivating, honest (I think?) and third-wall-breaking monologue in the history of washed up action heroes. He played himself, struggling with being a has been. With being broke. With being Jean Claude Van Damme. The line between acting and just being were blurred throughout the film.

Somewhere between the auter vision of JCVD director Mabrouk El Mechri and the brilliant mind of Larry David, I hope Episodes (and LeBlanc) find a happy medium.

The concept of meta not as abstract but as self-reference has blanket appeal in Hollywood culture these days. We continue to blur lines between reality tv and reality, characters and people, news and entertainment.

Unlike a lot of folks though, and much like the JCVD scene, LeBlanc’s comeback marks a chance for him to regain success for doing something unique and, some might say, brave — by being himself. I hope the writers let this happen. I hope LeBlanc lets it happen. If so, it’s possible Episodes might end up being the most realistic television show produced in 2011.

And if Episodes becomes Must See TV, will the suits in an act of irony bring it over for major release in the States?

Wouldn’t that be… cliche.

Tags: BBC, David Crane, Episodes, featured, Friends, JCVD, Jeffrey Klarik, Larry David, Mabrouk El Mechri, Mad About You, Van Damme