Television June 01, 2016
Ugly Naked Guy from ‘Friends' Revealed — Who Is the Actor?
NBC
More than a decade after “Friends” ended, the mystery behind who played Ugly Naked Guy has been revealed!
On the hit series, Monica (Courteney Cox), Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Joey (Matt LeBlanc), Ross (David Schwimmer), and Chandler (Matthew Perry) would often talk about their naked neighbor.
Ugly Naked Guy was only seen in two episodes, and only from the side or back — his face was never shown. He was also not credited for the role, which led Huffington Post's Todd Van Luling on a search to find out who had played the mysterious character.
After a year, Luling's search came to an end thanks to Central Casting employee Jennifer Bender, who got him in touch with Ugly Naked Guy himself, actor Jon Haugen.
Haugen confirmed his identity to Luling, saying, "You want to let the world know who the real Ugly Naked Guy is, huh? There's only one Ugly Naked Guy, man, and that was me. The reason I never came forward was because I was just keeping it mellow because Warner Bros. was keeping it mellow. They wanted everybody to have a guess who I was.”
He added, "I wasn't really expecting them to call me back for me to do it again. It was the best time in my life. I was the man.”
Though Haugen appeared to be naked on camera, he wasn't really. "I was in boxer shorts. At first, I was feeling a little shy because I had about 500 people watching me in the audience besides the crew and everything. But after about two minutes went by, I was real comfortable and David Schwimmer was real comfortable. We were just in boxer shorts and they made it look like we were naked.”
Speaking of Schwimmer, Haugen only had wonderful things to say about his scene mate. "He made me feel like I was his brother. I've been on a lot of TV sitcoms and 'Friends' was my favorite. Everybody was fantastic. They treated me like I was family."
