You can’t get much past seasoned Netflix viewers who have binge watched pretty much everything on the streaming platform.

Which is probably why Julia Roberts jumped the gun and addressed the major plot hole in Leave the World Behind ahead of time, as people have already started to point it out.

As an actor with a catalogue of iconic roles under her belt – including the likes of Pretty Woman, Erin Brockovich and Notting Hill – it’s no wonder that some of her characters have followed her throughout her career.

But I bet Roberts didn’t expect her cameo in Friends to crossover with one of her current films a whopping 27 years later.

If you haven’t heard about her latest hit project, the 56-year-old has just starred in Leave the World Behind alongside Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la Herrold and Kevin Bacon.

Its official synopsis on Netflix reads: “A family vacation on Long Island is interrupted by two strangers bearing news of a mysterious blackout.

“As the threat grows more imminent, both families must decide how best to survive the potential crisis, all while grappling with their own place in this collapsing world.”

Julia Roberts’ former role has come back to haunt her in Leave the World Behind. Credit: Netflix

Roberts takes on the role of advertising executive Amanda Sandford, who is in search of some respite from the hustle and bustle of modern life and the gadgets that are glued to us.

She packs up the car and heads on a trip to Long Island with her husband Clay Sandford (Hawke) and their two teenagers Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie).

Their young daughter is, like the rest of us, infatuated with Friends and spends the drive out of the city binge watching it.

The tech-obsessed teen is therefore quite peed off when the family arrive at their holiday home to find they have no internet connection – as she’s been left on quite the cliffhanger and cannot watch the finale of the 90s sitcom.

As the blackout and the looming tech apocalypse wreaks further havoc, she’s more interested in finding a way to watch the last episode of the tenth series than finding a way to survive.

Despite evidently being engrossed by Friends, Rose failed to pick up on the fact that her on-screen mum starred in it.

Julia Roberts had a cameo in the NBC show back in 1996, when she appeared as Susie Moss, the love interest and childhood friend of Chandler, aka the late Matthew Perry.

Roberts had a cameo in Friends as Matthew Perry’s love interest. Credit: NBC

In The One After The Super Bowl Part 2, the pair reconnect and reminisce on a film set before they start dating.

To jog your memory a bit more – she ends up convincing Chandler to wear panties to dinner and strip down to his lingerie in the toilet cubicle.

Roberts, who briefly dated Perry in 1995, then steals his clothes and bolts out the door as payback for him lifting up her skirt during a school play – proving that revenge is a dish best served cold.

The Eat, Pray, Love protagonist was quizzed about the Friends connection to her new film Leave the World Behind during a chat with Entertainment Tonight ahead of it’s Netflix release.

Fondly recalling her time on the show alongside Perry, she said: “The Super Bowl episode! All good thoughts and feelings. “They [the cast] were all so welcoming to me as just a kind of one-off character and it was a really fun time.”

Her Leave the World Behind cast mate Mahershala Ali chimed in: “It’s beautiful he could sort of be honoured in that way or the show sort of be honoured, coincidentally, in this time so it’s kind of nice that it has a little space in there.”

Speaking on the death of her comical co-star on 28 October, Roberts added: “The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking. I think it just helps all of us appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can.”

Sam Esmail, the director and producer of the new smash hit apocalyptic thriller, said he wasn’t scared of fans reaction to the supposed plot hole in Leave the World Behind – while adding that even if the world was ending, the Friends theme song would still put a smile on your face.

He told The Messenger: “In this universe, Julia Roberts is not playing Amanda. There’s just Rose’s mom, Amanda Sanford. And on the show, she sees Julia Roberts, and maybe she has a passing resemblance to her mom, but because it’s her mom, she probably doesn’t think twice about it.

“So that’s my weird, meta-convoluted explanation for it. But, in reality, when Julia read the script, of course, I was so curious about her reaction, and, ultimately, I think we all smile every time we realized the connection. In that way, emotionally, it even adds to the satisfaction.”