David Arquette captured priceless behind-the-scenes footage from the 'Friends' final episode, but fans may never get to see it.
David Arquette captured priceless behind-the-scenes footage from Friends' final episode, but fans may never get to see it.
ET's Lauren Zima recently spoke to the 48-year-old actor about his new wrestling documentary, You Cannot Kill David Arquette, as well as his upcoming film, 12 Hour Shift, and he talked about life in quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic. Although Arquette's You Cannot Kill David Arquette was supposed to premiere at SXSW before the entire festival got canceled, he said he's still grateful that he has his family and his health. He also addressed another big project that has been postponed -- the highly anticipated HBO Max Friends reunion special that his ex-wife, Courteney Cox, was set to participate in.
Arquette and 55-year-old Cox were married for more than a decade before they split in 2010, and were still together when Friends aired its series finale in 2004. Arquette, who also guest starred in a season 3 episode of the iconic show, shared with ET that he actually shot lots of backstage footage of Friends' last episode.
"This is the most tragic part, it's so silly," he says. "I hope at some point I find it but I had this -- I filmed all behind the scenes, like, the final episode and I'm, like, walking around, just filming all this stuff that nobody really sees just to give people an idea of, like, what they did. And so much so that the final scene, I'm up in the rafters and I'm shooting down, complete, like, bird's eye view."
Arquette also captured the ritual that the close-knit cast -- which aside from Cox includes Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc -- did before each show. Kudrow talked about the ritual with People in 2018, and said the six cast members would huddle together and tell one another they love each other.
"And there's, like, this really beautiful ritual they do right before it," Arquette tells ET, looking back. "I don't want to reveal too much 'cause I'm sure they'll share it, but a little ritual they do before they go out, which I captured, which was really sweet. So, I'm really excited to see [the reunion]. They're all really wonderful people and incredible writers and the incredible crew that was a part of that and really dear people."
Unfortunately, Arquette says he's now lost his personal footage, but he did previously share some of it with others.
"I made edited versions and sent them to everybody, so hopefully somebody found an edited version," he says. "Could include something that they want to show. ... But no, I lost it completely. .... I don't know where it is."
Arquette remains on great terms with his ex-wife, with whom he shares his 15-year-old daughter, Coco. The actor shared it's been tough spending time away from his teenage daughter amid social distancing, and also said how proud he is of Coco and her singing talents, which Cox has shared on Instagram.
"She's incredible," Arquette says. "She's got more talent than I ever had or ever could. And confidence, which is really amazing. So, I'm super proud of her."
Cox and Coco actually appear in You Cannot Kill David Arquette, which was filmed over three years and chronicles his longtime passion for wrestling.
"They loved it," he says of the final product. "I mean, one of my favorite parts is that Coco wasn't embarrassed by it 'cause you know, a teenager's just ... You know, for her not to be embarrassed is just a huge win in general. So, that really made me feel good. And she liked it a lot. They liked it a lot. It's really sweet that they supported me and just being a part of it. And you know, when I first won the championship, I was married to [Cox] so it was nice of her to be a part of the film."
The film also captures some of his friendship with the late Luke Perry, including the night the Beverly Hills, 90210 star and his son, Jack -- who's also a wrestler -- drove him to the hospital after a bloody match.
"Luke, I've known Luke forever, like, since we were 17," he shares. "He moved into our house where we lived. He did a movie with Alexis [Arquette] and they were friends. And he would say, 'I'm thinking about moving out to Hollywood,' and Alexis said, 'No, just move out now. It's pilot season, my mom has an extra room, you should come out and go to pilot season.' And he did. After the movie, he moved into our house and lived there for a few years until he got 90210 and all this really was an amazing time. So we've been friends for a long time, really dear friends. And he was there. I knew Jack Perry was a wrestler, who's been wrestling for a few years. He wrestles under the name Jungle Boy. And he was at that show ... and yeah, so they took me to the hospital that night and were really helpful."
"It's about my return to wrestling, [my wife] Christina produced it, it was an incredible experience but it does -- it's very hard to watch for me because it caught me in a very painful part of my life," he adds about the documentary. "I lost a friend, Luke Perry, and I just don't know, the whole journey that we captured took a lot, took a lot of therapy, took a lot of work on myself and work on our relationship and by the time we got to this place, it has been -- knock on wood -- rather smooth because we had kind of done the work beforehand."
Arquette is definitely keeping busy these days with his wife, former ET correspondent Christina McLarty, as well as their two sons, Augustus and Charlie. Arquette also teamed up with his wife for 12 Hour Shift, an upcoming dark comedy thriller about a nurse in Arkansas who secretly sells black-market organs.
"So, at a time when we're praising these incredible first responders ... please, I hope people can watch it with like, sort of a dark comedy eye on it because it's really fun," he says with a laugh of the film he and his wife are producers on. "It's really campy ... and it's really great performances, great music."
Meanwhile, ET spoke with his older sister, Patricia Arquette, in January, and she admitted that his wrestling "terrified" her. Watch the video below for more:
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