David Schwimmer and Marcel the monkey had beef.
During the “Friends” HBO Max reunion special, Schwimmer shared his less than fond memories of working with his monkey co-star.
“Obviously it was trained and it had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time,” he said in late May. “But what inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out and it would get messed up because the monkey didn’t do its job right.”
“I’d have monkey grubby hands all over,” Schwimmer added. “It was time for Marcel to f**k off.”
RELATED: The Women Of ‘Friends’ Reunite Once Again For 4th Of July Party
Well, animal trainer Mike Morris has a different riff on the “Planet of the Apes” rivalry turned real.
“The first couple episodes, David Schwimmer was pretty good with the monkeys,” Morris recently told The Sun. “After that, he seemed to get a little bitter about them being there. It made it harder to work with them.”
“A five-camera show is hard to work on anyways and if you have an actor that’s not very helpful, it makes it even harder,” he added.
Morris has a hunch that Schwimmer had monkey envy.
“The first couple episodes he was pretty friendly with the monkey and after that, the monkey was getting a lot of laughs,” Morris said, “and either it was throwing him off or getting a little jealous.”
RELATED: Jennifer Aniston Doppelgänger Goes Viral Thanks To Epic ‘Friends’ Impression
“Him still talking ill about the monkey all these years later seems pretty childish to me.”
Morris also takes exception with Schwimmer speaking poorly of Marcel, who recently died of cancer.
“Schwimmer was talking ill of the dead when he made those comments,” Morris said. “I find it despicable for him to still be speaking ill of her.”
The white-headed capuchin monkey, real name Katie, was born in 1985 and co-starred on eight episodes of “Friends”, starting with “The One With The Monkey” and concluding with “The One After The Superbowl, Part 2”.
