Friends will always be a good TV show to rewatch at any time. The '90soutfits, catchy theme song, and the fact that it takes place in New York City make it nostalgia bait when you're channel surfing (if that's something you still do...). But the one thing that truly sets Friends apart are the relationships between Chandler Bing, Monica Geller, Ross Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, and Rachel Green. Rachel and the actress who plays her, Jennifer Aniston, are basically inseparable within pop culture these days — but that almost wasn't the case.
Friends creator David Crane reveals in Warren Littlefield's memoir, Top of the Rock: The Rise and Fall of Must See TV, (via Vanity Fair) that an NBC executive originally offered the part to actress Jami Gertz: “We didn’t have a Rachel, and Jami Gertz is a really talented actress, but not Rachel. So we held our breath for 24 hours until she passed.”
After Jami turned down the role, the show still needed a Rachel. Enter: Jennifer Aniston.
"I hated auditioning," Jennifer says in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "I got too nervous and wasn't very good at it." However, it's clear that despite her nerves, she made quite the impression!
“I had auditioned the day before," she continues. "I really wanted it really badly, and I walked into the audition and there were so many girls. I remember just thinking, ‘Oh boy.’ I just gave it my all and came home. I think it was that day, it was by 2 o'clock that same day I got the job.”
However, the first season of Friends didn't go as smoothly as you might expect. On an episode of Gayle King in The House, Jennifer reveals that the sitcom she starred in at the time, Muddling Through, was about to get picked up for another season. When it did get picked up again (for only three episodes), NBC began looking to recast Rachel, and Jennifer had to make a choice. She ended up asking a producer about moving from Muddling Through to Friends.
"That's when he said, ‘I've seen that show Friends,'" Aniston tells Gayle King. "I saw the pilot. That's not going to make you a star. This show will make you a star.' And then the rest is history.""
Jennifer has gone on to star in titles like The Morning Show, Murder Mystery, Cake, and We're The Millers, but Rachel Green's enduring optimism, persistence, and killer fashion sense will always have our hearts.
At the end of her WSJ interview, when asked what she considers her biggest accomplishment, Jennifer offers a small smile and says, "That I'm still here."
