Joey Tribbiani: Difference between revisions

'''Joseph Francis Tribbiani Jr.''' (born 1968/1969)<ref>"{{Cite web|url=https://screenrant.com/friends-character-ages-change-wrong-explained/" Screenrant, |title=Friends: The Characters' Ages Explained (& How They Get It Wrong)|first1=Colin|last1=McCormick|first2=Kara|last2=Hedash|first3=Tom|last3=Russell|date=December 2, 2019|website=ScreenRant}}</ref> is a fictional character, serving as one of the [[List of Friends and Joey characters|primary characters]] of the [[NBC]] [[sitcom]] ''[[Friends]]'' and the protagonist of its spin-off ''[[Joey (TV series)|Joey]]''. He is portrayed by [[Matt LeBlanc]] in both series.<ref>[http://www.mattleblanc.net/ Matt Leblanc Fan Site]</ref>

Joey once mentioned being 13 in 1981.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with Joey's Fridge|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= March 23, 2000|season=6|number=19}}</ref> He is from [[Queens, New York]] and is [[Catholic Church|Catholic]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The One With the Dozen Lasagnas|url=https://fangj.github.io/friends/season/0112.html|website=fangj.github.io|access-date=10 December 2017}}</ref> Joey comes from a [[working-class]] Italian-American family of eight children, of which he is the only boy. His father Joseph Tribbiani Sr. ([[Robert Costanzo]]), is a [[pipefitter]], and his mother's name is Gloria ([[Brenda Vaccaro]]). Joey has seven sisters: Mary Therese (Mimi Lieber on ''[[Friends]]'') a.k.a. Mary Teresa ([[Christina Ricci]] on ''[[Joey (TV series)|Joey]]''), Mary Angela ([[Holly Gagnier]]), Dina (Lisa Melilli in ''The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister'', [[Marla Sokoloff]] in ''The One With Monica's Boots''), Gina (K.J. Steinberg on ''[[Friends]]'', [[Drea de Matteo]] on ''[[Joey (TV series)|Joey]]''), Tina (Lisa Maris),<ref name="mtv.com">{{cite web|first=Amanda|last=Bell|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/2743243/joey-tribbianis-sisters-friends/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160227053305/http://www.mtv.com/news/2743243/joey-tribbianis-sisters-friends/|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 27, 2016|title=Where Are Joey Tribbiani's Sisters Now?|website=[[MTV.com]]|date=February 24, 2016|access-date=November 12, 2018}}</ref> Veronica (Dena Miceli),<ref name="mtv.com"/> and Cookie ([[Alex Meneses]]). As a child, he was extremely accident-prone.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with the Boob Job|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= February 20, 2003|season=9|number=16}}</ref> In "The One with Ross' New Girlfriend", it was implied that he was sexually abused by his [[tailor]] but didn't realize it until Chandler went to the same tailor.

He does not like sharing food, especially when it is pizza, and has difficulty with even simple mathematics. In sports, Joey likes the [[New York MetsYankees]] in [[Major League Baseball|baseball]], [[Los Angeles Clippers]] and [[New York Knicks]] in [[National Basketball Association|basketball]], [[New York Giants]] and [[New York Jets]] in [[National Football League|football]], and the [[Detroit Red Wings]] and [[New York Rangers]] in [[National Hockey League|hockey]].

| Unnamed [[Jean-ClaudeAl Van DammePacino]] project || (1994) || [[Al Pacino]]'s butt double (Fired)

| ''Shutter Speed''|| (1999) || (Bank robbedBankrupt on first day of production)

Joey Tribbiani is a member of the [[Screen Actors Guild]],<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= October 14, 1999|season=6|number=4}}</ref> having refused to follow in his father's foot steps and become a gardenerpipefitter.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with the Boobies|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= January 19, 1995|season=1|number=13}}</ref> He started his acting profession doing [[theatre|stage]] work, introduced in the show's [[The Pilot (Friends)|pilot episode]] by Monica and Chandler having seen Joey in a production of ''[[Pinocchio]]''. Sometime before the start of the series, Joey also had appeared in a porn film, as a fully clothed extra.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with Phoebe's Husband|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= October 12, 1995|season=2|number=4}}</ref> Joey also mentioned appearing in a [[Play (theatre)|play]] with [[troll]]s before getting the leading role of [[Sigmund Freud]] in the musical play ''Freud!'' where he was first spotted by his [[talent agent]] [[Characters of Friends#Introduced in season two|Estelle Leonard]]. She immediately got him a film role in the same episode as [[Al Pacino]]'s "[[body double|butt double]]" – a speechless role he later lost due to taking the part too seriously. By then, he said, he had been doing "nothing but crappy plays for six years".<ref name="butt"/> Monica and Chandler also once discussed having seen Joey in a version of ''[[Macbeth]]'', in which he was unable to pronounce most of the words.

Several episodes later, Joey costs himself the ''Days of our Lives'' gig when during an interview with ''[[Soap Opera Digest]]'', he radically overstates and claims he writes most of his own lines. This angers the show's writers, who out of spite, "kill off" his character by having Dr. Ramoray fall down an elevator shaft. Joey takes this very hard and admits that his role on ''Days'' was the best thing that ever happened to him.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= March 21, 1996|season=2|number=18}}</ref>

In seasons 6 and 7, he lands a starring role as Detective 'Mac' Machiavelli in a very short-lived, and very bad cop show called ''Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E'', which Chandler described as "one of the worst things ever... and not just on TV." Joey had high hopes for the series, however ''Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E'' was canceled halfway through its first season.<ref name="assistant">{{Cite episode|title=The One with Rachel's Assistant|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= October 26, 2000|season=7|number=4}}</ref>

Joey is also briefly employed at [[Central Perk]] as a [[waiter]]. Facing a dry spell in his career as an actor, Joey is persuaded by [[Gunther (Friends character)|Gunther]], the manager, to take a job serving [[coffee]]. At first, Joey tries to hide his new job from his friends, but they eventually figure it out. He does not like the work but, true to his nature, soon finds a way to use his position to meet and ingratiate himself to attractive women by giving them free food, although Gunther quickly puts a stop to it. Joey doesn't take his job very seriously and spends a lot of his working hours sitting and talking to his friends. Eventually, he is fired for closing the coffeehouse in the middle of the day to go to an [[audition]] while Gunther was running a personal errand. Rachel later persuades Gunther to give Joey back his job, but once Joey finds more steady acting jobs he eventually just stops showing up. His absence is barely noticed. In a later episode, Joey realizes he forgot to tell Gunther he quit; Gunther replies that he would have eventually fired him anyway.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with the Joke|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= January 4, 1996|season=6|number=12}}</ref>

Joey is also briefly a [[sperm donation|sperm donor]] for a medical experiment; at the end, the hospital would pay any donor $700. This was later mentioned when Monica goes to a sperm bank. Joey finds to his dismay that his sperm is not very popular.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=The One with the Jam|series=Friends|network=[[NBC]]|airdate= October 5, 1996|season=3|number=3}}</ref>

Joey is extremely promiscuous, often relying on his catchphrase pickup line "How ''you'' doin'?". He regularly sleeps with attractive women, but can never seem to get into a committed relationship – judging from a conversation he had with Chandler at the latter's bachelor party he seems to regard marriage as depressing and restrictive. He sleeps with many of the interns and extras on shows on which he works. He has apparently been sexually active for a very long time; he undid a 16-year-old girl's bra when he was nine, slept with his teacher in the seventh grade, and had a "wild spring break" when he was 13. In the episode "The One With Joey's Interview", he sleeps with the interviewer (played by [[Sasha Alexander]]) so what he said about not watching soap operas doesn't get published in ''[[Soap Opera Digest]]''.