18. Degeneres Almost Made the Cut
When the show first aired, Ellen Degeneres was on fire. She’d recently come out about her sexual preference while producing her first show, Ellen, making her the first out actress in a starring role on TV. When producers put names down for Friends actors, Degeneres’ name hit the page as Phoebe. This may explain why Phoebe was originally an ancillary character. That way, Degeneres could work on other projects. Instead, she chose those other projects full time. Her variety show, The Ellen Degeneres Show or simply Ellen, has launched her name into the Oprah stratosphere.
17. Rachel and Joey
When the character of Rachel, who was supposed to be with Ross, hooked up with the character of Joey, it was more than the fans who had a problem with it. “It felt wildly inappropriate,” Matt LeBlanc admitted to Vanity Fair in 2012. “Everybody got super-defensive about the whole thing.” The cast approached the producers together, expressing their concerns, but the plot point remained. It had to. The writers needed something to fill time and build tension as they wove the plot to guide Rachel to Ross in the long run.