These actors could have been in 'Friends'

Anyone who thinks that Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, and Matthew Perry were the first or only choices to star in 'Friends' from the very beginning, is seriously mistaken.

It's hard to imagine the characters of the series looking like anyone other than the actors who played them for 10 seasons. But, still, there were some big names in the casting pool that could have changed the show considerably.

Speaking to Oprah in 2014, Lisa Whelchel recalls that her faith, as a devout Christian, prevented her from taking on a character like Rachel. "I remember reading the pilot episode and I said to my husband, 'This is the funniest script I have ever read and this is going to be a huge hit.'" Yet, she didn't know if she could take it on due to the content.

Legend has it that Ellen Degeneres had a very strong chance of playing Phoebe. And it's not true. The actress herself denied it in 2015, on Howard Stern's show, calling the claim a "Hollywood myth". But it would have been an interesting choice.

Tea Leoni wasn't just a Rachel 'possibility', she was actually chosen to take on the role. And she seemed perfect. What went wrong? She went for another NBC sitcom, 'The N a k e d Truth'. It ran for three seasons and obviously didn't have the same impact as 'Friends'.

Ok, he isn't Matt LeBlanc but would it have been bad if Vince Vaughn had ended up as Joey? Casting director Ellie Kanner doesn't remember why they rejected him. She did reveal to the Huffington Post in 2015 that she thought the actor was "handsome, tall and talented" at the audition, but one can only imagine it wasn't enough.

Thiessen was one of the actresses of the moment, thanks to her role as Kelly Kapowski in 'Saved by the Bell'. Unfortunately for her, the producer of 'Friends' felt that Tiffani and her baby face were just too young for Rachel at just 19 years of age.

"Did you know I tested for Friends, for Jennifer Aniston?" she told Nikki Glaser on SiriusXM in 2018. "I was just a little too young to the pairing of the rest of them."

It's hard to imagine Will Truman playing the role of the most famous paleontologist in the history of television. Or maybe not... The resemblance with David Schwimmer is remarkable and Eric McCormack has already proved he is a comedic genius. "I got a couple of auditions in," he told 'Access Hollywood Live' in 2018. "I got to the studio level and I didn’t make it past."

According to James Burrows, the director of several episodes, the role of Ross Geller was written for David Schwimmer. At the same time, Schwimmer would guest star in 'Will & Grace', the series that made Eric McCormack a star. Both 'Friends' and 'Will & Grace' were NBC shows.

The final decision to play Monica was between Nancy McKeon and Courteney Cox. As NBC casting director Lori Openden recalls in Vanity Fair: "She gave a terrific performance. Warren let Marta and David make the call. They went off for a walk and came back and said Courteney."

Jon Favreau was seriously considered for Chandler. In fact, David Crane, co-creator of the series, confessed to Vanity Fair in 2012 that the casting for Chandler was the toughest of the six leads.

"We brought everybody in. We were so sure that Chandler would be the easiest part to cast. It’s got the most joke jokes. It’s sarcastic and kind of quippy, but no one could do it. No one." Until Matthew Perry came along.

Craig Bierko came very close to being Chandler Bing. His friend Matthew Perry helped him with the audition. Perry himself was one of the favorites, but he opted to accept the pilot of another series called 'Best Friends'. In the end, the project Matthew Perry was working on was canceled and he decided to accept the role of Chandler. The rest is history.

Jon Cryer did not get a role that seemed tailor-made for him. "I was working in the UK and got a call from Marta Kauffman, and she had a script called 'Six of One'," he told James Corden in 2015. "She said, 'The part I want you for is named Chandler Bing.'" But when the tape was shipped from Los Angeles, it got stuck in customs. This delay prevented casting officials from seeing Jon Cryer's audition before Matthew Perry.

"I auditioned for Joey, and didn't get it, and I was like, 'No, no, I have to go back, I have to try again'..." the actor on the right told The Late Late Show. "I bulled my way back in for a second time and they were very kind and watched my audition, and then threw me out. Spoiler alert, I didn't get the role of Joey." Hank Azaria did, however, get the role of David, a recurring character who almost married Phoebe.

David Crane, one of the show's creators, told Vanity Fair in 2012 that the role of Monica Geller was cast with Janeane Garofalo in mind. It's unclear if the actress ever auditioned for the role, however. As she said in an interview: "There is some truth to it, but not exactly that."

"Long ago, before 'Friends' was Friends, when it was in its infancy, it was a show called 'Friends Like Us', and I was being considered for a role," Garofalo revealed. The role was "like a goth girl, which I think morphed into Phoebe." A 'gothic' Phoebe would surely have given 'Friends' an interesting turn... but it never got that far.

The actress confessed to E! at the 2015 Emmys that she wishes "I wish I had gotten that one." She revealed: "I actually auditioned for Rachel and didn't go very far."

It was the role of a lifetime: "I’m pretty sure every actor within that age group tried to get on Friends," she told People. "It was just one of those shows that everybody wanted to get an audition for and be on. And wisely so. It was a show of a generation."

She said: "I auditioned for Monica... We walked out of the building and into the completely empty parking lot. We chatted on the way to our cars, wishing each other the best, and then we saw Courteney Cox walking toward us, then past us and right into the building... We both knew it right away: She had the part of Monica." But at least she got to appear in one episode, playing a single mother whom Joey helps at the hospital.

Remember Barry, Rachel's fiancé who dumps her in the first episode? Well, Mitchell Whitfield, the actor who played him, came very close to being Ross in the series. As he told The Guardian in 2019, he auditioned for Ross and Chandler, but it was 'his Ross' that got him through to the final round. "At the last minute, they said: 'We’re bringing in one more guy to read.' That guy turned out to be David Schwimmer."

Much has been said about the possibility that the 'Glee' star could have been Phoebe in 'Friends'. She shut down those rumors, confirming she never auditioned for the role. She does say that she would have loved to have done that audition.

At that point her life, she says she "wasn't at the level to do that kind of casting," as she told the Huffington Post. Added to this is the fact that Ellie Kanner, the casting director, confirmed that there was never any doubt about Lisa Kudrow - the role was for her. But, still, Jane Lynch's name was mentioned in an early briefing.

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