Could he be any more embarrassed? Jean-Claude Van Damme looked back on his one-episode stint on “Friends” — calling the experience a bit “strange.”
“My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ […] It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself,” the actor, 63, told The Post while promoting his new Irish whiskey brand, Old Oak. “So then I was on the set, and those girls, they go and they kiss me and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do … It was strange. They were very nice.”
The Belgian-born action star played himself in the 1996 episode, titled “The One After the Super Bowl: Part 2.” In the episode’s plotline, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox) have both had eyes for the “Muscles from Brussels” since he started filming a movie in New York City. Since Monica is too shy to approach him, Rachel does so for her — leading to a fight over who gets to go out with JCVD.
“I didn’t know much about the show. So when I go to the show, I see those two beautiful girls and they say this is the hottest show right now in the world. So I was very glad,” Van Damme said of appearing in the second season episode. “And my agent said, ‘You have to do an episode with them. So you’re going to play this guy.’”
Van Damme then stood up during The Post’s Zoom interview and reenacted the cheesy stance his character had to do during the scene.
“Oh, but this was [how I looked] against the wall,” he mused. “So I was like this on ‘Friends.’ ‘Hey, girls. What’s up?’”
Despite joking it was awkward for him, the actor said making the cameo “was a good memory.”
“They were very open because they did the show every day. So for them, I enter into a place where everything is working like a very well-trained mechanic engine,” he continued. “It was amazing.”
The “Bloodsport” actor even cracked that the NBC sitcom — which ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 — was more popular than his entire career catalog combined.
“But everybody talk about that show more than all of my movies together,” he said.
“Nothing wrong!” he clarified. “But as to show you how strong TV can be.”
“Friends” also starred Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc.
According to Van Damme, having a crush on Aniston or Cox wasn’t in the cards, as he was married to Gladys Portugues. They had married in 1987 and, after a brief split, reconciled and remarried in 1999.
“An amazing woman from New York,” he gushed to The Post.
“She’s the champion … [A bodybuilder when] bodybuilders didn’t take any sorts of special products to become bigger. She was very natural,” he continued. “I own a gym in Belgium. I saw her on the cover of ‘Muscle and Fitness.’ I told my friend, ‘When I go to America I’ll marry that woman.’”
“She did a photoshoot in Mexico … And I flew on my own to Mexico, Cabo San Lucas. We did the photoshoot together because I was kicking high in the air, which was different for the magazine. And we shot together,” he recalled. “In one shot together I’m holding her on the rock and her back go like this [up and down]. Because my heart was pounding so hard. Boom, boom.”
When not spending time with Portugues and their three children, Van Damme is busy with his new whiskey line, which he co-owns with friend Kevin Carson. The “Old Oak” brand name comes from Northern Ireland’s Derry County, also referred to as “Oak Leaf County.”
“When you drink this whiskey, imagine your tongue is like the sand. And the ocean starts to come slowly and start to absorb. The sun will become more humid from dry to humid. That’s your tongue,” he told The Post. “This one will warm up your throat and you have to taste it to understand. But first you have to be educated about it, which is normal. And that’s the whiskey I’m selling and that’s why I represent [and] I’m involved.”
He added: “I’ve got a great team behind me. I cannot do this alone. I mean, this packaging, it’s very classy. It’s very Irish, it’s beautiful.”