‘Italians play Jews – why can’t Jews play Italians?’ asks Friends’ Adam Goldberg

Friends star Adam Goldberg has criticised the show’s lack of diversity as “insane” and said he has had feedback during his career in which he was described as “not being all-American enough”.

Goldberg played Chandler’s rebound roommate Eddie in three episodes of the second season of Friends in 1996, after Chandler (Matthew Perry) fell out with Joey (Matt LeBlanc) who moved into his own apartment.

In an interview with The Independent to mark the 30th anniversary of the series that drew 30 million viewers an episode at its peak, the actor said of the show’s lack of diversity: “Looking back, it seems insane. I’ve heard black people speak about this and it’s like, you never expected to see yourself, so when you didn’t, it was not a surprise, and you ended up identifying to characters, irrespective of their race.” He said the lack of diversity at that time was “just the norm”.

Since Friends, the actor has starred in the A Beautiful Mind, Fargo and Saving Private Ryan Wikipedia, NBC

The actor continued that while Italian actors play Jews on screen, it does not seem to work the other way round – a fact he has aired previously. “I spent a lot of my career complaining about how Italians can play Jews. You see De Niro play Jews, but you very rarely see someone who’s a known Jewish actor playing Italian. So that’s where my head was at.”