From cheesy flicks but lovable flicks like Street Fighter to modern day mega-hits like The Expendables 2, Jean-Claude Van Damme has proven himself an iconic martial artist and actor. But his bravado just wasn’t enough to take down his singular sitcom appearance on Friends.
In the episode “The One After The Superbowl, Part 2,” Van Damme played a fictional version of himself starring on the equally fictional film Outback 2. Plenty of fans fondly remember his cameo, and even the actor himself has said more people, “talk about that show more than all of my movies together.” So why did he say he felt ashamed by his time on the program?
Jean-Claude Van Damme didn’t know much about Friends
In the show, Van Damme is an absolute hunk that both Monica and Rachel want to have a date with. Sitcom shenanigans ensue; Monica and Rachel fight over who gets to go out with the superstar, and it turns out Van Damme only ever wanted to have a threesome with Rachel — and Drew Barrymore. He may have been confident on the screen, but behind the scenes, things were entirely different.
“I didn’t know much about the show,” Van Damme admitted in an interview with the New York Post. He also made it clear that doing the show “was a good memory” for him. The issue didn’t come from complaints of the sitcom aging poorly either; it was all from disappointment in his own acting skills.
My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ […] It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself. So then I was on the set, and those girls, they go and they kiss me and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do… It was strange. They were very nice.”
If anything, he’s probably lucky the deleted scene with him saying “I can crush a walnut with my butt” was cut, because the embarrassment levels might have hit critical mass. But in all seriousness, Van Damme is in the hallowed halls of Friends guest stars like Robin Williams, Brad Pitt, and Bruce Willis. When your name is next to star power like that, there’s nothing you should feel ashamed of.