'The Empty Vase' Poet On ‘Friends’ Recalls Being Monica’s Latin Lover

Die-hard "Friends" fans could never forget Julio, the amateur poet who wrote "The Empty Vase" after spending a night with Monica:

"My vessel so empty with nothing inside. Now that I’ve touched you, you seem emptier still."

Carlos Gomez, the actor who portrayed Julio and seduced Monica (Courtney Cox) with his Latin Lover charms in 1997, recalled the role in a recent interview with The Huffington Post.

In the episode, "The One With All The Jealousy," Monica and Julio didn't last long after she realized she was the empty vase in the poem. And Julio was quick to put the nail in the coffin by clarifying that the poem wasn't about her, but about "all American women."

"It's funny because there's a thing on YouTube, like the ten worst boyfriends on 'Friends' and I was one of them," Gomez told HuffPost.

Gomez remembers his guest appearance fondly, particularly working with Cox. He recalled the scene where he had to seductively pull the actress' lower lip while saying “I could write an epic poem about this lip" before kissing her.

"Courtney was fantastic to work with," Gomez said. "I had to pull her lip and we had to rehearse it a few times. And I'm like 'Are you OK?' and she was like 'Yea, yea. I'm fine.' Because you never know, I'm the guest star. I'm just coming in for one episode. And here I am making out with Courtney Cox."

As for the rest of the cast, he said they were "all very humble at the time."

Since then, the Cuban-American actor has had roles in dozens of series, including "Charmed, "24," "Criminal Minds," Family Law" and "The Glades." Currently, you can catch him on "Madam Secretary" as special ops agent Jose Campos.

Throughout his almost three-decade career, Gomez says the types of roles he's been offered have drastically changed.

"We weren't seen at that time, we were either stereotypically the Latin Lover or gang member number 2 or thug number 3," Gomez said. "It was very, very stereotypical at that time. I played a lot of drug dealers and a lot of bad guys before things started changing. And I made a conscious effort for a time not to play anymore bad guys."

His character on "Friends," he admits, certainly fit into the Latin Lover stereotype. "I think I was one of three Latinos on that show," Gomez said.

But Gomez has since accepted roles as mayors, detectives, doctors and more. He thinks the industry still needs to continue to evolve towards a more diverse TV landscape.

"When I first started there were very few Latins that were prominent in anything positive, where now producers have seen that there is a change," he said. "[They're] starting to get the picture, little by little."