What Kind Of A Friend Is Courteney Cox Arquette?
The door to my suite in the four seasons hotel in Los Angeles opens, and theres Courteney Cox Arquette. But what I'm seeing is Monica Geller. It's so surreal and exciting, it's like meeting an old friend. The odd thing is that she's so immediate,warm, direct, you feel that she knows you. She's wearing a black poloneck, beige trousers and black boots. Her hair is snow white shiny and her eyes are startlingly blue.She's clutching a polystyrene cup and has a self-concious look. We'd been told to hire a suite for her. she say's, "I thought we were going to meet in the bar, I hadn't expected all this", which instantly makes you feel her earthiness. You absolutely want to be her friend. Courteney, 38, has said in the past that Monica was a good working for her own neuroses, and everybody watching her must feel a vicarious thrill from that. She's fragile yet strong, and even her husband David Arquette say's that part of why he fell in love with her was because she's true to who she is and wears her heart on her sleeve, and she dosen't hide anything. So while interviewing some celebrities is like performing a root canal, with her it's a joy. In fact she seems challenged by any kind of therapeutic workout. She's a therapy pioneer, after all, and is well-versed in talking about her pre-marital therapy sessions, so she and David could make sure they were ready to inscribe on their rings, "A deal's a deal". But theres an interesting conflict in her. As friendly as she is, she's spent a lot of time in her life not fitting in. She was born in Alabama and went to college to be an architect before talent spotting. "The South's very social and I'm not. In fact, I'm the only social within small groups. I don't like to go to parties. I can't deal with it. I do go sometimes, but only if it's a party for about 30 people". This seems to come from when she was growing up and alway's felt like an outsider. "I was shy and people alway's picked on me. There was a group of girls who I thought were pretty terrible, I was part of their clique at one point, and then I fell out of it. High School is pretty brutal, so instead, I put myself on a strict programme, so I got out of school early and worked". Her shyness was so acute that she found it impossible to go into the smoking area at school, even though she smoked. "I went in there once, but there were so many differant groups of people, I couldn't find a place". Ironic then that the person with no friends at high school should go on to become everyone's friend. So we asked courteney the question what kind of a friend is she? Nurturing, listening, demanding?
"I'm not one to call people when I have a problem. I don't reach out very much as a friend, I don't know why. Although I seem to have friends who call me when they have a problem. They know it's going to be nurturing, I'll try to fix it, but I guess you could call it tough love. They know there going to get an honest answer from me even if they don't want to hear it. I don't candy coat anything". So who are her best friends? "I have a best friend in New York, her names Teresa Lowry, I don't see her often, but I met her in New York when I was 18. We both kind of look the same and talk the same, and were both really sensitive. We just get each other. I've got a group of friends from New York-Elise, Marlene and Gina and a group of friends in LA- Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow I consider as two of my very best friends. And Jim Stein, who's another of my friends he's a writer/producer, and he's alway's there for me". It's true, then, that the cast of Friends really are hugely bonded. They often go out together, especially all the girls, and, despite Courteney's claims to not being social, she has dinner parties twice a week when a chef called Judy comes in and does all the food. At these parties, David has been known to change his outfit three times in a night because he loves the idea of a costume. He has many more clothes than Courteney does. "David has a lot of Miu Miu suits. He collects costumes too, he dosen't know what he's going to feel like one day. He might want to be a cowboy or a punk rocker. His closet is a lot more colourful than mine, I don't have a lot of clothes, I like thing's that are comfortable, there are certain designers that I like- I love Juicy and Earl Jean, I like Lucien sweaters and for nicer thing's Prada. Once I've found something that's good for my body type, I'll stick with it, I hate shopping, I can't go into malls, I just hate them, I get so overwhelmed. Also, once I'm in an outfit, I stay in it all day I never change". There's a strange mix her and David, she's minimalist and he's excessive. It's as if they act out each other's half. "Of course David is my best friend". But their's wasn't a friends thing first that then morphed into a relationship. "It was strictly a major attraction between two people who, on paper, you'd never have thought could have made it. On paper, he wasn't the right guy, but he was someone that felt right. It was a chemical thing I just couldn't deny that he has a great heart. I got to know him more and he got to know me and he's evolved so much since the day we met. Weve both been through a lot of changes. His mum amd dad died and he really grew up and became the person that he wanted to be. He opened me up in a lot of way's too. All my friends love him, but when I first met him, they really couldn't see it working". Before David, her relationships with the opposite sex had been dislocated and painful, hot and cold on both sides. There are a couple os reasons for this and she's quite explicit. The first one is to do with her fear of commitment. "I used to have no boundries and to commit to thing's meant, 'Oh, God, I'm trapped', As soon as you have boundries, you say no to thing's that you really want to do". The second is abandonment issues she had with her father. When she was 10, he divorced her mother and left Alabama for Florida, so she didn't get to didn't get to see him much. But before he died in 2001, he had an 18 month battle with cancer during which they had a chance to repair stuff. The same year she had 2 miscarriages and the death of her two dogs that she'd had for 15 years. Instead of being destroyed by all of this, she's turned it around. And her dad's death enabled them to get over her attraction to distant men. "A lot of them would be moody and aloof, then I thought, why am I attracted to these people? I'm not like that, I've had enough of them, I got tired of the way they treated me, but it took a long time and it was finally my dad dying that brought it all together. Why would I want people like that in my life? With David I just lucked out that I found someone who's sexy and who's alway's there for me". When they first met, though, they had a huge clash in domestic tastes which, typical Courteney fashion, she's turned into a new TV show called MIX IT UP a kind of CHANGING ROOMS with therapy. "When David and I moved in together we were complete opposites. The fact that we were able to combine our tastes is miraculous, but I think a lot of people go through that. I think compromises can be reached and that's where the idea for the show came from. It's not just for couples, it could be roommates or friends". What was the area of conflict with David? "He's a collector of what I refer to as junk and he calls collectibles. He dosen't have one lunchbox, he has 75. He also collects large shoes that are 6ft long. We have six single ones under our pool table- he dosen't collect pairs. I'm not a collector of anything. I like to live more sparingly. Guys seem to want to put thing's all over the place but I've found living with David, that thing's pit together in a collection are easier to handle".
Courteney and David have a house in Malibu which they share with their dogs. "I'm madly in love with my dogs, Hopper and Harley they're King Charles Spaniels. And Ella, a Burmese mountain dog. I like to stare at them, right into their eyes". She describes their home as modern yet really earthy, it's a John Lauter house, he's an architect from California and it's like a cave of wood and glass, I have nice stone tables in it". She's very architecturally aware. She and David also have a house in the Hollywood hills, which they've recently bought after selling a bigger home in Brentwood. It seems a rather tight challenge. "Were downscalling and I'm thinking that David's lived with this stuff a long time. Maybe he's ready to unload some of it. I hope so" Unloading comes easy to her, she's sold all her furniture, but I can tell her I don't know if she can change someone who is set in hoarding habits. " I won't change him, I hope that he changes, it's alway's his intention when we get a home together not to junk it up, but somehow he can't control himself". Do they have catastrophic rows over it? "No, I'll make it work", she say's, with a smile of determination that makes you trust she actually might. There's definitely more than a touch of Monica here. She's very set in her way's (this is a woman who only showers never bathes). "I definitely need space during the day, in the afternoon, Ineed to clear my head to get thing's done, wether it's calls or whatever. I have to get stuff done and I don't like to be interupted. People can come over, but don't expect me to talk to them. I need to potter and do whatever I do. But then I socialise almost every night. David and I have a house that people are alway's coming to, but I also like it when there's just the two of us. David makes ribs sometimes, but I haven't cooked in a long time". What's her favourite meal? "I like to eat steak, chicken and spinach. I don't have any naughty habits. My favourite meal would be steak, spinach, maybe mashed potatoes, but I don't eat them often, I like protein much better. I used to love pasta. Love, Love, Love it. It takes about 2 weeks of not eating it to not care about it". That sounds very iron-willed of her, I say. She gives me a look like it took no effort, just the flick of a switch, but I think it might have taken time to locate that switch-in a similar place, maybe to that bad-boy switch. She's working on 2 movies at the moment, one as yet untitled project with David, and one called NOVEMBER, which is a movie about a woman who sees her life flash before her as she's dying. And, of course,this will be the final Friends. Are you happy and sad in equal amounts? "I haven't thought about it yet. I know I'll be really sad, when we get to thanksgiving and we only have six more episodes, It'll be devastating". What will you do when you don't have Monica as a workout for your neurosis? "I think after all these years, I've worked it out and I'm ready for something new". She's certainly ready for the baby thing. "Definitely a goal. I've had 2 miscarriages, it's difficult, but we try. I know I can get pregnant. People keep writing that I've had in vitro, but that's not my issue I'm fertile, so it's just keeping it". She seems to neutralise the sadness by being fearless in talking about it. "I feel like everyone's got their path and I'll be exactly where I'm supposed to be. When my dad was dying and I was pregnant, I thought that this was a new soul coming into me. And then when that didn't work out, my dad died and I got pregnant again, I thought, this is my dad giving it to me, and then....I don't know, it just wasn't meant to be". Courteney dosen't stay in the moment long, partly because there's a knock at the door and it's her 7ft friend, Milos, who's a presenter on MIX IT UP. He certainly looks like he's a one-off- a kind of post modern punk bodyguard, and Courteney say's she's very much attracted to strange people and relationships. Has she ever been involved in a love triangle? "I dated 2 guys at the same time after I was in a long-term relationship once and didn't want to commit to anyone. They were complete opposites. I enjoyed it..... They didn't like it so much. But guy's do it all the time so I don't see why girls can't. I got differant thing's from each of them". What situation would make Courteney feel strange and uneasy now? "If I had friends who went to dinner and didn't tell me, or tried to exclude me. I feel very alienated if someone tries to have a secret. I want to know everything". Of course she does, who wouldn't be alienated by friends going off without you? That's why I felt like Courteney was my friend. And that's why she's been able to transcend her character. I think there's a bit of her in every one of us.
Article Courtesy of Glamour Magazine.
