‘Friends’ star recalls death threats over ‘groundbreaking’ role

She said: “I’d say there was 95% support, but once when I flew to Canada to shoot a Disney film there was a kid shouting at me from a school window.

“He yelled, ‘Go home, American f—’ and I just said, ‘Wow, wrong on so many levels, dude. Come over here and have a conversation with me.'”

Sibbett also faced threats from members of her church.

She recalled, “Then a woman from my old church called me… and told me I was going to burn in hell.”

Strangers and acquaintances weren’t the only ones to berate Sibbett for her on-screen role – as her own father refused to support the sitcom.

Instead of tuning in to watch his daughter on the hit show, Sibbett’s father opted to host a Bible study.

She said: “It caused stress in my own family.

“We had a big situation with my dad who wouldn’t watch the show. Luckily he figured it out in the end.

“It was heartbreaking that he wouldn’t watch it. He held a Bible study group at the time it aired to make sure his friends didn’t see it either.”

After the episode aired where Carol married her mistress Susan, her father changed his mind about her character and the show.

She said: ‘My godfather wrote him a letter telling him how proud he was of me because of the wedding scene it did for my father.

“He thought, ‘Wait, I’m not going to get convicted for this and it could help people.’ It was great that that wound healed before my father passed away.”

While reflecting on her time as Carol, Sibbett recalled an improvised scene that went over the heads of the producers and made its way into the final cut of the episode.

In the scene, Schwimmer’s character shows up at Carol and Susan’s apartment in the middle of the night, prompting her to drop a “tense” hint that the two women were not asleep when he arrived.

Sibbett recalled the original script, including “a joke that didn’t quite work” with the live studio audience. So she decided to mime “plucking a hair” from her teeth, telling Schwimmer he didn’t wake them.

She said: “I didn’t even think about whether it would be approved. I wasn’t actually sure if even they would see it, but I just thought, ‘Oh, I’m just going to give it a try, because you’re always throwing things away.’

“The audience was laughing, but no one really knew why. The producers said, ‘That’s it, that’s it. We get it.’ Only one producer came by and then gave me a thumbs up.

“I’m surprised it ended up in the show. They must have just missed it, the standards and practices. They completely missed it and it ended up in the main show.”