The Reason Jennifer Aniston Almost Didn't Play Rachel Green in 'Friends'

To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Friends, a new book by Saul Austerlitz is coming out about the show's history and cultural impact. Generation Friends covers a whole range of topics surrounding the beloved series, including the cast's lack of diversity and which actors almost didn't make it onto the screen.

One such cast member was Jennifer Aniston. Austerlitz tells the story of how she almost didn't play the part of Rachel Green (I know, it's hard to believe). What happened was that Aniston had already shot several unaired episodes of of a CBS comedy called Muddling Through. If the show got picked up, then Friends would lose Aniston in the middle of the first season. Entertainment Tonight reports:

"Muddling Through had already shot a half-dozen episodes, none of which had aired, and CBS, after some dithering, ultimately chose to put the show on its summer schedule, in the relative dead zone of Saturday nights. Hearing the news, [Warren] Littlefield turned to [Preston] Beckman, NBC’s scheduling guru, with a two-word order: 'Kill it.'"

The story gets even more complex. Apparently Beckman had several unaired TV film adaptations of Danielle Steel novels, which were guaranteed to attract a large female audience. His plan was to play these at the same time as Muddling Through on Saturday nights. Since the CBS show was about a motel manager, Beckman rightly knew it couldn't compete with the Danielle Steel films, thus freeing up Aniston for her part.

And that's the backstory to how Aniston became the American sweetheart, Rachel Green.

Generation Friends will be available on Sept. 17.