Can you imagine if another actress other than Jennifer Aniston had been cast as Rachel Green in Friends? Well, the actress was making the rounds at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Friday when she divulged that for a short while it looked as though the part was going to go to someone else.
According to a report by People magazine, Aniston explained by saying, "Friends came when I was off doing Muddling Through (A CBS show that lasted only 2 episodes). 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 two episodes they picked it up for. And so I just started doing this back-and-forth from Sony to Warner Bros. for two weeks. They wanted Courteney [Cox] to play Rachel. And unbeknownst to each other, I wanted to play Rachel and she wanted to play Monica. It worked out perfectly."
As difficult as it would be to imagine any other actress as Rachel, seeing Courteney Cox slinging coffee at Central Perk while pining after Ross (David Schwimmer) seems even more wrong, doesn't it? Would the characters have ended up as iconic if Cox and Aniston had switched places? Aniston's portrayal of Rachel led her towards a career of rom-com movies. That's something that it has taken her a decade to break out of but finally, after standing out as a chronic pain sufferer in Cake, she's considered a capable, serious actress.
We have to wonder if Aniston and the rest of the gang had any inkling just how big Friends would become and how it would define their careers. It's funny to realize how perfect the casting really was but the producers doubted it right down to the wire! Would Aniston have done as well if she had played Monica Geller? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
