Supporting actors are to series what small talk bites are to a party.

Just as one cannot keep on the hostess's heels the whole evening, no more series - especially when it comes to comedies - are only carried by their main actors.

Some of them have so much talent that they don't even need a lot of lines of dialogue to leave an impression on the fans, like Jack McBrayer, who played the page Kenneth in the media satire "30 Rock" and who makes mini appearances as a dumb bum Georgia worked up to be a permanent part of the crew.

Or like Sean Gunn, who was part of the first episode of the cult series "Gilmore Girls", but did not yet have the name "Kirk", under which he was seen in more than 130 episodes in the craziest costumes.

Maria Wiesner

Editor in the Society department at FAZ.NET.

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James Michael Tyler, for whom the fan base of the 1990s sitcom “Friends” has been mourning since the weekend, also succeeded in doing a similar thing.

In the series that accompanies six New York friends who spend a lot of time in a coffee shop, he played the blonde barista “Gunther” in the same.

He only got the name in the second season, when he was allowed to say his first line.

It was a banal "Yeah" to the even more banal question whether his apartment had a stairwell.

The fact that the man who had worked as a real barista in one of the last independent coffee houses in Los Angeles until this role even got as far as this line was due to his charm. The fact that the fans celebrated him as an integral part of the series, yes, even named him "Seventh Friend" (the seventh of the friends), he owed the development of his character, which was related to this charm. Gunther, like so many of the audience, adored "Rachel" played by Jennifer Aniston and put a lot of heart and soul into the expression of this unrequited love for 150 episodes - only in the finale he was allowed to confess his feelings to Rachel.

Jennifer Aniston shared that scene on her Instagram account with the words: “Friends would not have been the same without you.

Thank you for bringing so much joy and humor to the show and our lives.

We'll miss you. ”In the social networks, fans of the show also remembered the deceased with scenes and memes.

Tyler had made his prostate cancer disease public in June.

He passed away on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 59.