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:
