| movie) Ace Ventura." Crane saw Courteney Cox Arquette as the perfect Rachel, but she pleaded with him to be allowed to try for Monica, won the role, with Jennifer Aniston landing Rachel. "I was torn |
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| CASTING the male roles for Friends was somewhat easier than finding people to play the three female characters."We knew how good David Schwimmer was because he had auditioned for a project we'd done the year before, so he was at the forefront all the time for Ross," David Crane says. Crane and Marta Kauffman were familiar also with Matthew Perry's talents, after he had guest-starred in their comedy series Dream On. They didn't approach him, however, because he had starred in a pilot for another production company. "If that show got up, they had first option on Matthew, so we'd have had to start looking again," Crane says. "And to be honest, we also thought Chandler would be a relatively easy role to cast, with its load of jokes and wisecracks. "But when we couldn't find anyone we liked, we finally asked Matthew to audition and he was the only person who made Chandler Bing come alive." |
| Matt LeBlanc was the last of the six cast for Friends. Crane admits that he and Kauffman had another actor in mind for the role of Joey. "But Matt made the part funny in a very specific way. He brought a sweetness to the role we had never imagined." Having chosen six individual actors, there was always the chance that together they wouldn't have any on-screen chemistry. "But the day we saw the first run-through, it sent chills down my spine," Crane says. "It looked like they had been together forever." |
| for each role," he says. "We often thought we were never going to cast the show well. "It wasn't as if we saw eight guys who could play Chandler or six girls who were right for Phoebe, and pick the best one. "We couldn't find anyone who really got us excited to play Phoebe, until Lisa (Kudrow) finally walked in and we knew immediately we had found her." Kudrow recalls she had to come back three times before landing the role. "But I |
| between reading for Rachel and Monica," Aniston says. "But Rachel felt right. Two hours after I'd read for Rachel, the producers rang me at home and said it was a done deal, and I was beyond thrilled." While delighted to be a part of a worldwide hit, Cox Arquette says fame has come at a price. The constant scrutiny from magazines looking for a scoop has taken some adjusting to. "They are forever saying I'm too thin or anorexic. You really can't win," she says. "If I want my lower body to look the way I like it, then my face can look gaunt. But if my face is full, I don't like the way my lower body looks." Kudrow admits it will be sad to say goodbye. "It will be horrible because we love each other and this whole thing has been so good," she says. "But we've promised ourselves that we won't run the show into the ground, so we are just going to be brave and face up to it when it happens." |
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| kind of nervous, because I hadn't heard of any of them, except for Courteney, who I'd seen in (the |
| didn't mind, because I didn't often get called back and I didn't think I did |
| Casting For Friends |
----------------------------------------------------------------------- The famous six DAVID Crane recalls that he and Marta Kauffman's search in 1993-94 for six actors to star in Friends was a "long and hard affair". "We went through more than a thousand applicants |
| anything spectacular," she says. "I met everyone at the first reading and was |
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