There's an alternate version of history where the cast of friends includes Jessica Hecht. The prolific actress, who was recently nominated for her third Tony Award for Eureka Day, was nearly cast as Monica instead of Courteney Cox.
"Can you believe that?" Hecht says laughing about the sliding doors theory while chatting with Parade in our New York studio, although she admits that she thinks she was "a total backup."
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"I knew the casting director from high school," Hecht says, telling the story of her audition. "I grew up in a small town near Hartford, Connecticut called Bloomfield. There was nobody else. The only other person from my town who's an actor or has anything to do with entertainment is Anika Noni Rose. But there was this woman, Ellie Kanner. 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.' So I went in, mostly excited to see Ellie Kanner, and then they started to read me for Monica."
Obviously, Hecht didn't end up booking the role, which went to Cox instead. "I think looking at me back then, I'm tall and I just had a bigger size than the rest," Hecht says, regarding why she wasn't ultimately cast. "Now I look at it, and I think how perfect Courteney was, I would have been more of a Lisa, just physically and energetically."
Fans of Friends will, however, recognize Hecht as Susan Bunch, the new girlfriend of Ross's ex-wife Carol.
"They just couldn't figure out how to make Susan work," Hecht says about her casting, "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!" Hecht continues laughing, "They're wonderful. They come in all sizes."
Related: Jessica Hecht Reveals the Hardest Part of Being a Tony Nominee (Exclusive)
Jesica Hecht FriendsNBC
Hecht appeared on 13 episodes of the series, making her debut in the second episode of Season 1. She filmed many of her episodes before the series became the juggernaut it would eventually become.
"If you're at the very beginning, you don't know what it's going to be. So you're just there trying to help them figure out what the show is. And you don't feel the weight of its history, because it has no history, and you don't know what it'll be," Hecht says of working on that first season. "In Friends, it's not that it was casual, but the show was not iconic by any stretch. So I had more creativity, and I had more of a sense of just trusting my gut about what I wanted to do with this character. And Jane Sibbett, who played my beautiful wife, we were so locked into each other, so it was mostly about our energy together. The actors were awesome, but nobody had that confidence yet, so it was a very delicious time."
It is crazy to think about how different Hecht's life would be now if she were one of the six titular "friends." But perhaps then she wouldn't have three Tony nominations to her name either!
Related: Lisa Kudrow Makes Bold Admission About Her Time Working on 'Friends'
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