Courteney Cox has said it was “unbelievable and so emotional” to film the Friends reunion.

The actress will join co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer for a long-awaited follow-up to the beloved sitcom.

The cast will not be in character and will appear as themselves in the special, which was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic and was originally set to arrive on the HBO Max streaming platform in May last year.

Cox, who played Monica Geller, told The Ellen DeGeneres Show: “It was unbelievable, so emotional.

“It’s an unscripted reunion, but we got to be on Stage 24 for the first time, all of us, in I forgot how many years — 15 years? Seventeen years?”

Asked if it brought back lots of memories, she said: “I have the worst memory. Everything came up that I forgot about.

“But, it was great. It was really fun. We had a lot of special surprises, and it was fantastic. It really was.”

Discussing the famous opening sequence of the show, which saw the cast frolicking in a fountain, she was asked whose idea it was.

She replied: “Well, it definitely wasn’t mine.

“We were in that fountain for a long time, and I don’t know who, somebody thought that would just be really fun and let me tell you when it happens, it’s not fun to be dancing in a fountain for hours and hours.

“I remember Matthew Perry saying at one point, and we didn’t know each other that well at that point, but I remember — and this is so Matthew — but he was like, ‘Can’t remember a time that I wasn’t in this fountain’.

“Literally, we were just like, ‘Oh, my God. How much longer are we gonna pretend to love dancing in the water?’ It was fun, but not really.”

Friends ran for 10 series from 1994 and remains one of the most popular shows on TV.