Friends fans were abuzz after a recent photo of one of the show’s former stars surfaced online, nearly 30 years after his debut as Rachel’s charming but troubled boyfriend.
On Monday, a Reddit user posted a recent snapshot from the actor who played Paolo, Rachel’s flirtatious Italian neighbor in the comedy’s first season in 1994.
Paolo made his memorable entrance in the seventh episode, sweeping Rachel off her feet, only to reveal his unprincely side by flirting with Phoebe five episodes later.
Despite his character’s brief and controversial stint, fans couldn’t help but admire how well the actor has aged, with one Reddit commenter noting, “Aging like a fine wine (much better now than in ’94).”
Can you guess who this handsome actor is?
Friends fans were abuzz after a recent photo of one of the show’s former stars surfaced online, nearly 30 years after his debut as Rachel’s charming but troubled boyfriend.
On Monday, a Reddit user posted a recent snapshot of the actor who played Paolo, Rachel’s flirtatious Italian neighbor in the sitcom’s first season in 1994.
He is Cosimo Fusco, a 62-year-old native of Matera, Italy.
Although Paolo remains his most iconic role, the actor has since appeared in films such as Gone in Sixty Seconds and Angels & Demons, and has made guest appearances on television shows such as Alias and The Mentalist.
Another fan on reddit shared: ‘He looks so much better now!’ while another chimed in: ‘Man, he’s handsome.’ But of course, it always was.
One simply summed it up by writing: “He was always a handsome guy, they just deliberately used the hair and costume to make him look like someone from the cover of an erotic novel, as slimy as possible.”
The Reddit post follows Fusco’s revelation that he improvised many of his lines while playing the charming lover boy on Friends.
“They asked me to improvise,” Fusco told the today’s program in 2019 in honor of the beloved comedy’s 25th anniversary.
‘I was a bit skeptical, because my English then wasn’t as good as it is now, let’s face it. But they told me not to speak any English. “Just say what you want in Italian.”
“I invented most of the Italian that Paolo spoke,” he admitted then.
Paolo made his memorable entrance in the seventh episode, sweeping Rachel off her feet, only to reveal his unprincely side by flirting with Phoebe five episodes later.
Although Paolo remains his most iconic role, the actor has since appeared in films such as Gone in Sixty Seconds and Angels & Demons, and has made guest appearances on television shows such as Alias and The Mentalist.
Despite his character’s brief and controversial stint, fans couldn’t help but admire how well the actor has aged, with one Reddit commenter noting: “Aging like a fine wine (much better now than in ’94).”
‘When I’m at the window with Jennifer and I say, “Look at the moon, look at the stars.” … I just made up those lines.”
At the time, Fusco shared that he is frequently asked about his experience kissing Jennifer Aniston during his time on Friends.
“She was a lovely, lovely young woman, a very talented actress,” he said.
“The combination of the six (actors) was incredible, the chemistry was incredible,” he recalled. “And they were very generous with me, because they understood that I was a young Italian involved in a comedy.”
