Tyler played palaentologist Charlie, the first Black recurring character on the long-running sitcom Aisha Tyler has reflected on the lack of diversity in the casting of Friends as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. Tyler appeared in the ninth and tenth seasons of the hit sitcom as Charlie Wheeler, a palaentologist who is romantically involved with both Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Ross (David Schwimmer). She was the first Black recurring character in the show.
In an interview with The Independent, Tyler said she used to hear passers by yell “Black girl from Friends!” “It was such a common refrain at the time,” she said. “It wasn’t like it was just something that people looked back at later and said, ‘Wait a minute.’ No, at the time, people talked quite a bit about the fact that, for a show that was set in the heart of Manhattan, it really lacked diversity.
But we didn’t have social media back then, so it wasn’t the large-scale conversation that it became later.” She continued: “There was nothing in the writing of my character or in the stage directions that indicated that Charlie was supposed to be a woman of colour. I know that David has said that he really pushed for that [more diversity] and I think that’s wonderful.
“But what I liked was that they just wrote this smart, sexy character and she happened to be Black and they weren’t trying to seismically change what the show was, but they were aware of the fact that it didn’t feel totally represen.