Noelle Sheldon, who played Rachel and Ross’ daughter Emma in a Friends episode during the show’s final season, has finally responded to a joke Matthew Perry’s Chandler made in “The One With The Cake” about 2020. It was the perfect way for the actress, now 17, to ring in 2020. Fans of the series loved the photo.
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“Just woke up from the best nap of all time, happy 2020!! (ft. my poorly done photoshop),” Sheldon wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself with a Central Perk coffee mug and photoshopped into the Central Perk set. “Hope everyone has an excellent year full of family, friends, and laughter!!”
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“Iconic post lmaaooo,” one fan wrote.
“Best caption ever,” another chimed in.
“Okay this is legendary,” another wrote.
“You should win an award for this caption,” one Friends fan typed.
“This is the best thing. I love it. HAPPY NEW YEAR,” another wrote.
Sheldon’s caption was a reference to a line in “The One With The Cake,” notes Us Weekly. In the episode, Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) hosted Emma’s first birthday party. They told their guests to wait for Emma to wake up from a nap before the party could start. So Ross had his friends record video messages for Emma’s 18th brithday while they waited.
“Hi, Emma,” Chandler said in his video. “It’s the year 2020. Are you still enjoying your nap?”
“We’re Aunt Monica and Uncle Chandler, by the way,” Monica (Courteney Cox) added. “You may not recognize us because we haven’t spoken to your parents in 17 years!”
“We used to be married, but then we missed a weekend away together and things kind of unraveled,” Chandler joked, since the couple wanted to get out of town. “Because of you!”
Sheldon and her twin sister Cali Sheldon played Emma in Seasons 9 and 10. After acting in several short films between 2012 and 2016, she appeared in two 2019 films, Ham on Rye and Jordan Peele’s horror movie Us. Cali also had a role in Us.
In a February 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Sheldon said she did not realize the “extent” of her work on Friends until she was 10. At the time, the twins told ET they still want to pursue acting.
“I want to keep being an actress because I think it’s really fun to be a different person for a little bit,” Cali said. “But it’s more of a hobby than a career path.”
“Our friends think it’s really cool because they think we’re famous,” Noelle told ET. “I particularly don’t think we’re famous or anything because we were babies so, people aren’t going to say, ‘Oh you’re baby Emma from Friends.’ But they think it’s really cool because they think we’re famous.”
Sheldon’s priceless photo comes at a difficult time for Friends fans. The show is no longer available on Netflix and will not be available to stream again until HBO Max launches in May 2020. Until then, fans will just have to hold on to their physical releases to visit Central Perk.
Photo credit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
