Joey (TV Series) - Main Characters

Main Characters

• Matt LeBlanc portrays Joey Tribbiani, a struggling actor and food lover who becomes famous for his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey is a womanizer with many girlfriends throughout the series, in keeping with his character on Friends. The series roughly picks up where Friends left off, with Joey at the beginning of the show making a move from New York to Los Angeles to proceed with his acting career. He is constantly talking about food or eating sandwiches or pizza.
• Andrea Anders as Alexis "Alex" Garrett, the next door neighbor, landlord and friend. She is an educated, but slightly ditzy, blonde lawyer who graduated from Northwestern University and Pepperdine University School of Law. Initially intimidated, but also intrigued by Joey's tough street-wise older sister Gina, the two women eventually become friends, and she becomes more bold in the way she dresses and acts, thanks to Gina's influence. She is puzzled but impressed by Joey's intuitive gift at being able to know when she is wearing thong panties, and spends most of her time hanging out at Joey and Michael's apartment. She and Joey bond and become close friends. Her husband is a professional orchestra musician and is away from home most of the time, and she confides her problems with her marriage in Joey. At the end of season one, she and Joey become romantically involved during her separation from her husband. In season two she becomes romantically interested in Joey and has a crush on him for a long period. Gina tries to help her to get over Joey, but once Alex starts dating Joey's friend Dean, Joey soon realizes that he is also in love with Alex. Coincidentally the actors portraying Joey and Alex also fell for each other in real life.
• Paulo Costanzo as Joey's nephew Michael Tribbiani who idolises his Uncle Joey's ability to date many women, and who himself is sheltered and nervous around girls. He is self-conscious that he has been so sheltered and that his mother Gina breast fed him until he was seven. Early in the second season it is revealed that Michael suffers from Asperger syndrome. He is a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Wars fan. He is extremely intelligent, an aerospace engineer, attends Caltech and specialises in applied thermodynamics, works with his rival Seth frequently on engineering projects, and is an obvious direct opposite from his more street-wise mother and uncle. He turns to Joey as a big brother and substitute father figure, even after his biological father Jimmy re-enters mother Gina's love life.
• Drea de Matteo as Joey's attractive older sister Gina Tribbiani, who is temperamental and promiscuous. Not particularly bright but very street-wise, Gina is a caring but over-protective and domineering mother. For years she convinced her genius son Michael that he was born when she was 22 instead of 16 years old, and always says he is the one thing she has done really well. She and Joey are friends in addition to being siblings, both having the gift of being extremely appealing to the opposite sex, with numerous lovers. Initially working as hairdresser, by season two she works as a secretary for Joey's agent Bobbie, having impressed Bobbie with her brash manner. In season two she starts dating Michael's father Jimmy once again. In the Season 2 episode "Joey and the Holding Hands", it is implied that Gina may be bisexual.
• Jennifer Coolidge as Joey's oversexed agent Roberta "Bobbie" Morganstern, and reportedly the twelfth most powerful woman in Hollywood. She has an enormous crush on Joey's nephew Michael. She often entertains herself by making her office assistant do funny tricks, or shocking herself with a stun-gun. She is brash, forward, aggressive, highly entertaining and slightly ditzy, laughing at everything and at anyone's expense, including her client Joey's. She was once sued by Phil Collins.
• Miguel A. Núñez, Jr. joined the cast at the start of season two as the character Zach Miller. He soon became one of Joey's best friends. Zach has an interesting career, going from playing extras on TV, to directing amateur plays. Zach does not appear to have a home; he was seen at one time living in Joey's trailer while working on a major blockbuster movie. In one episode, Zach and Joey, both drunk, married in Tijuana, possibly a parody of Ross and Rachel marrying each other in the season five finale of Friends. As a tribute to Joey and Chandler, Joey and Zach argued like a married couple, Zach playing the part of the wife. Zach's final appearance was in "Joey and the Big Move". Núñez was absent from the last five episodes, including the finale of the series, because he found another job. Zach's absence within the show was not mentioned, nor was the character at all.

Two cast members had previously appeared as different characters in Friends; Coolidge appeared as Amanda, an old friend of Monica and Phoebe, in a tenth season episode. Adam Goldberg appeared in Friends' second season in the recurring role of Eddie, who moves in with Chandler after Joey moves out. Additionally, Robert Costanzo reprised his role as Joey's father, a character originated in the first season of Friends, in "Joey and the Dad". Costanzo was the only actor besides LeBlanc to play the same character in this series as in Friends (Gina appeared in a third season episode of Friends, but was not played by Drea de Matteo; Joey's sister Mary Theresa also appeared in a third season Friends episode, but was played by a different actress than on Joey).