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The Untold Truth Of The Actor Who Played Joey In Friends

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Matt LeBlanc walked onto the set of “Friends” with eleven dollars in his pocket and walked off it as one of the highest-paid actors on television — then walked away from Hollywood entirely for six years.

Joey Tribbiani made Matt LeBlanc a household name, but the actor’s road to Central Perk and back out again was rougher than the sitcom ever let on. Long before the laugh track, LeBlanc was broke, taking commercial gigs and bit parts just to stay afloat. Long after the finale, he was rebuilding a career and a life that had both come apart at once.

• LeBlanc had just eleven dollars to his name when he auditioned for “Friends” in 1994.
• By the show’s final seasons his salary had climbed to $1 million per episode, and his performance as Joey earned him three Primetime Emmy nominations.
• The 2004 spin-off “Joey” was canceled in 2006 after two seasons, arriving as LeBlanc’s marriage to Melissa McKnight was collapsing and his infant daughter Marina was diagnosed with cortical dysplasia.

From Carpentry Jobs to Casting Calls

LeBlanc grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and didn’t set out to be an actor at all. He trained as a carpenter before trying his hand at modeling in New York, then started picking up commercial work while chasing small television roles on short-lived shows like “TV 101” and “Top of the Heap.” None of it paid steadily, and by the time he read for the role of Joey Tribbiani in 1994, LeBlanc has said he was down to eleven dollars total.

Stardom’s Price and Payoff

“Friends” turned that audition into a decade-long run on NBC and made LeBlanc a global name. His comic timing as Joey earned three Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and his paycheck grew right alongside the show’s ratings, eventually reaching $1 million per episode in the final seasons — a figure that put him among the best-paid actors on network television at the time.

The Joey Cancellation and a Six-Year Retreat

When “Friends” ended its run in 2004, NBC handed LeBlanc his own vehicle with “Joey,” following Tribbiani’s move to Los Angeles. The spin-off never found its footing; low ratings and creative fatigue caught up with it fast, and the network pulled the plug in 2006 after two seasons. LeBlanc has said the cancellation stung far more than a typical career setback because it was tied so closely to a character he’d spent a decade building.

The professional hit landed at the worst possible time. LeBlanc’s marriage to Melissa McKnight was breaking down, and the couple’s infant daughter, Marina, had been diagnosed with cortical dysplasia. Rather than chase another sitcom pilot, LeBlanc retreated to his California ranch for six years, stepping almost entirely out of the public eye.

Eleven dollars to his name in 1994, $1 million an episode by the end of “Friends” — and then a six-year disappearing act most stars never survive.

The Episodes Comeback

LeBlanc’s return came in 2011 with “Episodes,” a Showtime/BBC comedy created by “Friends” co-creator David Crane, in which LeBlanc played a satirical, self-aware version of himself. The role let him poke fun at the exact image “Joey” had left him stuck with, and critics rewarded the gamble: LeBlanc took home a Golden Globe Award in 2012 and picked up four Emmy nominations for the part. It’s a rarer arc than it looks — plenty of costars who started out friends have ended up enemies once the cameras stop rolling, but LeBlanc’s path back to the business came through leaning on the very relationships “Friends” built rather than burning them.

The comeback kept building. By 2016 LeBlanc had landed the lead in CBS’s “Man with a Plan,” and he’d also become an international co-host on the BBC’s “Top Gear,” putting him back on two different networks at once. Former castmate Courteney Cox has talked openly about what it was like working alongside him during the “Friends” years, and LeBlanc’s own path since shows just how differently a decade-defining role can play out for the people who lived it.

Heading into December 2018, LeBlanc was still splitting his time between “Man with a Plan” on CBS and his “Top Gear” hosting duties — proof that the guy who once had eleven dollars to his name built a second act sturdy enough to run in prime time on two continents at once.