One of the creators and producers of ‘Friends’, Kevin Bright, has revealed that Joey was not the first choice for a ‘Friends’ spin-off. In fact, he wasn’t even the second choice.
Bright told Metro that Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel on the show, was actually who they wanted to take the reins and have their own show – hardly a surprise given the superstar the actress had become.
Bright said: “At first it was the obvious choices of who they wanted to do a series with and Jennifer was up there first, but she wanted to do movies and she wasn’t interested in television.”
Joey wasn’t their second preference either.
“Then we liked the idea of a Monica and Chandler series, but everyone at the end, strangely enough, while they were grateful for doing the show, they didn’t want to play those parts anymore,” he explained.
There was only one cast member who had any interest in continuing to play his ‘Friends’ character.
“Matt loved Joey and he didn’t mind playing Joey,” Kevin continued.
‘Friends’ dominated ratings but the same couldn’t be said for the ill-fated series ‘Joey’. Both fans and critics disliked the show, and it was cancelled after just two seasons, compared to ‘Friends’’ ten.
Regarding why the show was such a flop, Bright, who produced ‘Joey’ as well, considered: “I think we tried to present to the audience a Joey they didn’t know.
“Trying to develop a relationship and hang out with nerds. Even I don’t know what Joey was doing in that show, but it wasn’t what the fans were familiar with so it was not successful. ‘We had hopes it was going to be Frasier but it didn’t turn out that way.”
Kevin was recently in London where Friendsfest has just landed in the UK capital.