LeBlanc prepares for end of ‘Friends’

? Despite recent coy remarks made to the press by some cast members that maybe this won’t be the last season of NBC’s hit comedy “Friends,” actor Matt LeBlanc says this is, indeed, it.

“I had a lot of laughs every day there, and it’s a group of people who have become good friends and all good things must come to an end, and it looks like this will be the end,” LeBlanc said. “I think everyone’s decided that this would be it, it’s over.”

While he’s sad to see “Friends” go, the actor is busy lining up work even before his schedule officially clears up. He’s promoting the small film “All the Queen’s Men,” in which he plays part of a motley crew of spies who dress up as women to smuggle out a Nazi de-coding machine in WWII. Co-starring Eddie Izzard and Udo Kier, the $10 million film took 11 weeks to make, and LeBlanc was paid less than half of his roughly $1 million-per-episode “Friends” fee.

To accommodate his schedule on “Friends,” he took red-eye flights from Los Angeles to Europe.

LeBlanc acknowledges he’s doing movies to prepare for his career beyond television, but he still has a vested interest in the characters in the show.

For example, he balked about the love triangle that brought a big dynamic into the show last season.

“The whole cast was dead set against that, saying it was totally inappropriate, but then (creator) David Crane said it was very scary and that’s why we should do it,” LeBlanc admits. “It was a very carefully walked path, and they wrote it brilliantly, so I’m really proud of the way it came out.”

Rumors have floated for months that Joey would be a natural for a spinoff series. The idea appeals to the actor, who is planning on marrying his longtime girlfriend, Melissa McKnight, in the near future.

“If it was done correctly and the idea was right, and I trusted the writers and the people running the show, the show runners, absolutely I would consider it,” LeBlanc says.