Friends (opens in new tab) without Jennifer Aniston (opens in new tab)? It’s not even worth thinking about. But, it very nearly happened. Brace yourself for some mind-altering news….
She may not be the UK’s favourite Friends character, but the Rachel Green we know and love almost didn’t happen for two reasons. The first being Jane Krakowski.
Before her scene stealing roles in Ally McBeal, 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Krakowski was up for the part of Rachel. And it seems like she wasn’t the only one up for the highly coveted role.
(Image credit: Taylor Hill / Getty)
“Well, I, like almost every actor in the world, auditioned for Friends,” she said.
“I wish I had gotten that one. I actually auditioned for Rachel, and I didn’t go very far.”
Yes, the award-winning actress isn’t even sure that she got a callback. Although we’re sure she got over it quickly, seeing as reviewers hated Friends when it first aired.
Then there was the fact that the actress was nearly replaced very early on in the Friends journey because she had already agreed to star in another sitcom called Muddling Through.
Speaking about the part that almost never was, Jen An said: “So there was a period where I had to stand out of the photographs for the group shots, and I had phone calls from girlfriends saying, ‘I’m auditioning for your part in Friends.’
“They just took the chance that Muddling Through would fail after the [ten] episodes they picked it up for, and so I just started doing this back-and-forth from Sony to Warner Bros for two weeks.”
Jen also spoke about reports that the producers for Friends originally wanted her to play Monica Geller.
“They wanted Courteney [Cox] to play Rachel,” the Cake actress said.
“And unbeknownst to each other, I wanted to play Rachel and she wanted to play Monica. It worked out perfectly.”
So, now you know!