10 Ways Friends Was Almost Completely Different
7. Phoebe Was To Be A Goth
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.