Friends actress Maggie Wheeler reveals how Janice got her catchphrase and signature laugh
The 55-year-old actress said the trademark attributes were all her own work
FRIENDS star Maggie Wheeler has revealed how her character got her famous catchphrase and signature laugh.
The 55-year-old actress, who played Janice in the New York-based 90s sitcom, said the trademark attributes were all her own work.
"The choice of the voice for the character was mine,” she told .
"I made that decision when I went in to audition for the first time.
"At the top of the page it said 'fast talking New Yorker', I saw the language, and I just thought, ‘Yeah, I know that girl’.
“So I made that choice and it turned out to be the right one."
Maggie, who found global fame as Chandler Bing’s eccentric love interest, said her ‘Oh! My! Gawd!’ catchphrase was a natural development.
"Hats off to the writers, they put it in there and it went from there,” she said.
“The first one is in those first episodes and then from then on it just became signature.”
Maggie has been booked solid since the show wrapped in 2004 – with the final episode pulling in over 54million viewers across America.
Her extensive TV work has included roles in How I Met Your Mother, Californication, Hot in Cleveland, ER and Drake and Josh.
She sent fans into a frenzy earlier this week after she appearing on This Morning.
The brunette revealed on the ITV daytime show that her character’s cackle first occurred in rehearsals.
She said: “The laugh happened for me organically in the first rehearsal because I needed to find a way to laugh because Matthew Perry is so funny.
“Working with him I thought this guy was going to make me laugh on set, I’ve got to be prepared.
“What am I gonna do? So I created Janice’s laugh as a safety measure just in case he made me laugh.”