Before Jessica Hecht was beefing with David Schwimmer‘s Ross Geller on Friends, she almost played his sister.
The actress, who was ultimately cast as Susan Bunch, the new girlfriend of Ross’ ex-wife Carol (Jane Sibbett) on the hit sitcom, recently told Parade that she initially auditioned for the role of Monica Geller.
Hecht said she knew the Friends casting director, Ellie Kanner, from high school in her small town near Hartford, Connecticut, prior to her audition. “I was out in Los Angeles, and my agent said, ‘Oh, I sent your picture into this casting director for Friends. There’s one part, they’re not sure if the actor will take. They want to still look at some other actors, and I think she knows you from high school,’” she recalled. “So I went in, mostly excited to see Ellie Kanner, and then they started to read me for Monica.”
While Courteney Cox ended up landing the role of Monica, Hecht has an idea of why she wasn’t cast for that specific part. “I think looking at me back then, I’m tall and I just had a bigger size than the rest,” she said. “Now I look at it, and I think how perfect Courteney was, I would have been more of a Lisa, just physically and energetically.”
The three-time Tony nominee still managed to be a part of the Emmy-winning series, making her debut as Susan in season one, episode two. Hecht appeared in 13 episodes across the show’s 10-season run, though she wasn’t completely happy with how her character developed.
“They just couldn’t figure out how to make Susan work,” Hecht explained, “Because they — well, it’s terrible. But they just wanted a lesbian that didn’t look exactly like lesbians had previously, let’s be honest.”
“Use your imagination!” she quipped with a laugh. “They’re wonderful. They come in all sizes.”
Looking back, Hecht said she “had more creativity” and “had more of a sense of just trusting my gut” with her character at the beginning of the show, as it hadn’t cemented its place in TV history just yet.
“And Jane Sibbett, who played my beautiful wife, we were so locked into each other, so it was mostly about our energy together,” she added. “The actors were awesome, but nobody had that confidence yet, so it was a very delicious time.”
Friends also starred Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry.