In 1996, Brooke Shields was already a world-famous face. She had been a model since infancy, a controversial child star in ‘Pretty Baby‘, and the romantic lead of ‘The Blue Lagoon‘. But despite decades in the spotlight, she felt she was never allowed to be the one thing she desperately wanted to be: funny.
However, all of that changed with one manic laugh and a single, unhinged decision to lick a man’s fingers.
The Comedy Scene That Almost Got Cut From ‘Friends’
During a recent appearance on The Bossticks podcast, the 61-year-old actress opened up about how her guest spot on the NBC sitcom ‘Friends‘ didn’t just get her a big laugh; it “changed everything” for her career.
The episode was ‘The One After the Super Bowl,’ a massive post-Super Bowl XXX episode that aired on January 28, 1996. While the installment was packed with huge guest stars like Julia Roberts and Jean-Claude Van Damme, Shields played the relatively small role of Erika Ford, a delusional woman stalking Matt LeBlanc’s character, Joey Tribbiani.
Erika was convinced that Joey was actually his soap opera alter ego, the neurosurgeon Dr. Drake Ramoray. In Shields’ eyes, this meant the character had to be completely unglued. “I had one of the funniest parts written in the whole episode,” Shields recalled. The comedic climax came during a date scene, where the obsessed Erika asks to lick Joey’s fingers because they belong to a “genius.”
However, the producers were initially hesitant. They worried the physical gag made Erika “too crazy,” but Shields, seeing the comedic gold, fought for it. “I said, ‘I have to do it, please,'” she told the podcast. “At the last minute—we did one pass without it—and then the showrunner said, ‘Hey, Shields, put it back in'”.
Breaking the ‘Untouchable Supermodel’ Stereotype
For an audience used to seeing Shields as the pristine, untouchable Calvin Klein model or the dramatic ingénue, the transformation was jarring. When the episode aired, viewers saw her laughing maniacally and enthusiastically licking LeBlanc’s hand. “That sort of shock of seeing someone that had been sort of considered a supermodel… pristine and untouchable, and all of a sudden she’s licking a guy’s fingers… they were like, ‘Oh my god, what is this?‘” Shields explained.
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That shock translated directly into a career breakthrough. Shields recalled that as soon as they finished the second take, the “crazy” one-suited executives began appearing on the stage. “The next day, I was asked if I wanted to do my own television show,” Shields said, calling it her “Lana Turner moment“.
The Birth of ‘Suddenly Susan’
The result was ‘Suddenly Susan‘, a sitcom that ran on NBC for four seasons (1996–2000). Shields played the titular character, a magazine writer navigating single life. The role finally allowed her to merge her theater training with television comedy in front of a live audience. “It allowed me to really kind of delve in with comedy chops,” she said. The performance was so well-received that it earned Shields two Golden Globe nominations.
Reflecting on the moment decades later on Good Morning America, Shields noted that before that ‘Friends‘ episode, people told her that “attractive women can’t be funny.” “That ‘Friends’ episode, I wasn’t really ever asked or allowed… to be comedic,” she said. “It was this whole revelation. I just felt like I was in my own skin for the first time“.
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