Jennifer Aniston has spoken in the past about how close she came to missing out on playing the beloved Rachel Green across a decade of Friends, and fans’ imaginations have no doubt taken some strange turns when imagining who else could have made that role so memorable and influential. (Spoilers: it likely would have been Courteney Cox, who was the creators’ first choice for Rachel.) Let’s now journey in a similarly fantastical avenue of alt-universe castings to imagine how another NBC breakout star at the time, Saturday Night Live’s Adam Sandler, could have completely changed up the show’s dynamic had he landed his desired role on the hit sitcom back in the early ‘90s.
While it might be hard to imagine a time when Adam Sandler didn’t have complete creative control over his career and the comedy projects he gets involved with, it was a far different time when Friends was in the development stages. While promoting Netflix’s Murder Mystery 2 with Aniston by his side, Sandler addressed the idea that Friends would have been the one project his co-star was in that he’d have most wanted to also be part of. Not that he didn’t take a moment to joke about it, first telling Jake Hamilton that he would have been a fine substitute to play Ross’ fur-covered pal Marcel:
I would have taken… I would have been the monkey on Friends. I would have handled that.
I think we can all agree the world missed out on some Emmy-worthy material by Friends casting an actual capuchin monkey (Katie) to play Marcel rather than a fully-grown adult. And if they could have worked in the idea that the exotic pet could actually talk, then we're talking spinoff potential right out the gate.
Alas, that was obviously a non-realistic answer. When pressed a bit further about whether or not producers and/or NBC execs actually attempted to court him for a Friends role, Jennifer Aniston reacted as if they were ripping a bandage off of a fresh wound, but noted that Sandler actually wanted to play Ross. The Happy Gilmore vet clarified that tidbit, saying:
I don’t think [they ever approached me]. I was hoping. It hurt. I wanted to be Ross. And Schwimdog got it because he was a little taller than me, and a little nicer.
Two things about that. One: I'm not sure if it's actually surprising that no one from the show reached out to Sandler, given he had a level of fame at the time that those who were cast hadn't yet earned. The actor went on to exit SNL in a rather contentious way in 1995, so scheduling might have been easier to work around, but it's possible he would have drawn too much focus for a project that was based entirely around an ensemble.
And then two: I'm also not sure how realistic it would have been for Adam Sandler to try and land the role of Ross Gellar. Friends' executive producer and director Kevin Bright shared years ago that the role of the dino-lover was written with David Schwimmer in mind, as he'd previously worked with Bright and co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane. Which isn't to say that someone else couldn't have taken over the role, but it does seem like it was locked in from the start. They did view auditions from hundreds of other actors, though, so perhaps he could have slotted in as Chandler or Joey. Or Phoebe, even, though that might have been too much of a stretch.
Let's not forget that Adam Sandler actually did go on to play a simian character in his career, voicing the role of Donald the Monkey in Kevin James' 2011 comedy Zookeeper.
Can you imagine how wildly different Friends might have been with Adam Sandler in there somewhere? Maybe there will be a point in the hyper-near future where some A.I. program can just reinterpret the sitcom in its entirety with the SNL star replacing David Schwimmer as Ross. And after that, maybe another A.I. project where he actually is the same “Adam Sandler” who directs episodes of The Price Is Right. Not that it would actually change anything about those episodes directly, but fans would know that Plinko was being played through the Sand-man’s cinematic prism.
While Friends is available to stream in full with an HBO Max subscription, you’ll need a Netflix sub in order to watch Sandler and Aniston teaming up anew for Murder Mystery 2, which will debut on the streaming service on Friday, March 31.
