10 Ways Friends Was Almost Completely Different

7. Phoebe Was To Be A Goth

Courteney Cox Friends Monica Rachel
WB

Not only was Phoebe originally intended to just be a supporting character, she was also supposed to be a goth during the early development of Friends.

Sure, Phoebe is clearly the most quirky of the core Friends group, but her eccentricates and wacky awkwardness would have been taken to an entirely different level by making her a brooding, miserable goth. And it was this characterisation of Phoebe Buffay that caused Reality Bites star Janeane Garofalo to actually turn down the role of Phoebe when the show was still titled Friends Like Us.

Much like the series' title, the character of Phoebe would likewise undergo a change by the time production got rolling with Friends, with Lisa Kudrow eventually being the person to land the role.

In an interest nugget of trivia, Kudrow and Garofalo would eventually go on to appear together in 1997's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion - which was released three years after Friends first made it to air.

To think, there was a time when Phoebe was to be a minor character who was a disgruntled goth. Again, this seems just unfathomable now when looking back at how popular Phoebe proved across Friends' ten years.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.