The Friends reunion is around the corner and it is no less than a festival for those who’ve loved the sitcom forever. A sitcom that premiered in 1994 and ran for 10 successive years, is ranked first in the list of most classic and the most loved shows in the history of the world. Rachel Greene, Joey Tribbiani, Phoebe Buffay, Ross Geller, Chandler Bing, and Monica Geller aren’t just characters, they are a part of our lives. Fans of the show were anticipating a reunion episode ever since Jennifer Aniston debuted on Instagram with a picture of all the six friends hanging out together. Finally, a week ago, the cast of the show posted about the reunion of the show on 27 March. In this article, we shall be sharing the top 7 secrets of the show, we’re sure you didn’t know.
Courteney Cox is Monica Geller:
You must be wondering, how’s that news? Well, in 1995, Courteney Cox and Marta Coffman appeared together for an interview, in which they talked about how Monica’s character was almost congruent to Courteney. Courteney too is a cleanliness freak, so much so that she would clean up the dressing rooms of her co-stars, so that if she had to enter their dressing rooms, they would be clean. Marta asserted, “She’s adorable and intelligent and together. She is Monica. She has the neatest dressing room. She even cleans up the other actors’ dressing rooms because she won’t go in there if they are too messy.”
The Title of the show:
The makers of “Friends” were planning to name it ‘Six of One’ or ‘Gen X’. They couldn’t decide which one to choose and ended up naming it friends. The title was one of the reasons behind the popularity of the show. This was revealed by Karey Burke, who formerly worked as a prime-time executive at NBC. Burke asserted, “Six of One was the name of the show during the pilot. Then Kauffman and Crane came back with Friends, which we thought was such a snore. Some people thought the show was too Gen X, way too narrow.”
David Schwimmer left a mark:
David Schwimmer’s is one of the most underrated performances. Several scenes from the sitcom have proved that the character of Ross was undoubtedly the finest performance performed with so much precision and ownership, we forgot to make a difference if it was a character being played or if it was Ross playing Ross. You’d be surprised to know that David Schwimmer did not audition for the character of Ross. What he auditioned for was another character, which for some reason, he couldn’t be selected. However, he left a mark on the casting directors and makers of the show strong enough that they approached him to play “Ross” and we thank god they did!
Monica or Rachel?
Courteney Cox was roped in for the character of Rachel Greene. She even auditioned for the role, but when she came across the role of Monica Geller, she thought she couldn’t relate more and asked the makers if she could instead play Monica. That was how Courteney Cox went on to play Monica Geller, one of the most loved characters of the show. In 2012, Marta Kauffman was with vanity fair when she revealed this story and asserted, “We originally offered Rachel to Courteney Cox but she said she wanted to do Monica, not Rachel.”
Mondler was destined not scripted!
Chandler and Monica were each other’s lobsters. They are the most loved couple on the television (yes, more than Ross and Rachel). You’d be surprised to learn, the two weren’t written to come together, it was the audience that brought them together. Remember Ross’s London wedding (yes, where he said the wrong name, tragedy!). The wedding was the beginning of this beautiful couple. When Monica popped her head from between the covers (in bed with Chandler), the audience was surprised and clapped for 28 seconds. It was then, when the makers realized, the audience were loving the idea and that Monica and Chandler couldn’t just end up in a fling.
Guess who auditioned for Joey!
Hank Azaria, who played Phoebe’s boyfriend David (who flew to Russia) auditioned for Joey. However he couldn’t get the role, so he almost pleaded before the makers of the show to give him another chance to prove himself. He couldn’t make it to Joey but was roped in to play David. In 2014, during an interview with HuffPost, he said, “That’s the only job I ever auditioned for twice. I thought it was so good — they had rejected me once — I said, ‘I’m going back, I’m gonna do it again, I’m gonna try it again.”
Cost Cutting:
In one of his interviews, David Crane, one of the makers of the show revealed that they were running short on the budget and decided that some episodes of the show would be shot on the set only (indoors) and would include only the main characters of the show. The same was practiced during the episode ‘The One Where No One’s Ready’ of Season 3. It is counted amongst the most hilarious episodes of the entire show, especially when Joey wears all of Chandler’s clothes. So, an idea that was opted to cut costs of the show added to the story.
Conclusion:
Friends have been a much-celebrated show on television. It completes 17 years in 2021 since it last aired. There are several facts about the show that aren’t known to all. Courteney Cox was approached to play the role of Rachel Greene but she felt the character of Monica Geller was more relatable and therefore requested the makers to give her the role. The makers of the show initially wanted to name it Gen X or Six of One but ended up naming it ‘Friends’, when they couldn’t choose between the two. David Schwimmer did not audition for Ross. He has instead auditioned for another role previous to it and the makers liked him so much that they approached him to play Ross.
Courteney Cox in one of her interviews shared that she is just like her character Monica and that she likes to keep everything clean just like her. Monica and Chandler weren’t written to be together for a long time but the reaction of the audience was so overwhelming, that they two ended up being a couple. Hank Azaria who played Phoebe’s boyfriend David had auditioned for Joey, twice, but he got rejected. In several episodes of friends, the makers decided to shoot it indoors so that they could cut costs and ended up creating some memorable episodes like “The one where no one’s ready”.
DISCLAIMER : This and other personal blog posts are not reviewed, monitored or endorsed by Blogjab. The content is solely the view of the author and Blogjab is not responsible for the authenticity of content of this post in any way. Our curated content which is handpicked by our editorial team may be viewed here.
