Friends' writers helped Matthew Perry woo Julia Roberts

Matthew Perry asked Julia Roberts to appear on his hit sitcom Friends over some flirty faxes, but when Julia asked him why he should date her, the show's writers helped Matthew to pen the perfect response.

Kevin Bright, the show's co-creator, told The Hollywood Reporter: "Matthew asked her to be on the show. She wrote back to him, 'Write me a paper on quantum physics and I'll do it.' My understanding is that Matthew went away and wrote a paper and faxed it to her the next day."

Alexa Junge, a former Friends writer, continued: "There was a lot of flirting over faxing. She was giving him these questionnaires like, 'Why should I go out with you?' And everyone in the writers room helped him explain to her why. He could do pretty well without us, but there was no question we were on Team Matthew and trying to make it happen for him."

The pair dated from 1995 to 1996 after the Pretty Woman star agreed to work alongside Matthew when she appeared in an episode.

Jeff Astrof, who also worked in the show's writers' room, recalled: "I remember standing with her on the sidelines. She kept saying, 'Chandler's so funny!' And I'm like, 'I wrote every one of those lines!' I don't know if she fell in love with Matthew on the spot but they soon started dating."

They were both very private about their relationship but Julia previously spoke about how she was intimidated when Matthew first approached her "because he's awfully clever and funny and handsome."

After the couple split, Julia married cinematographer Danny Moder in 2002 and Matthew recently got engaged to Molly Hurwitz in November after two years of dating.