Friends: Originally, the six New York friends should have been seven

Initially, a seventh main character was planned in the band of friends of the series Friends!

Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Joe (Matt LeBlanc), Ross (David Schwimmer) and Chandler (Matthew Perry), the count is good! This was not the case at the launch of the series. And for good reason, originally the six New York friends were supposed to be seven. A very surprising fun fact that only the real experts of Friends know . Indeed, it is the author Saul Austerlitz who revealed the incredible information in his book entitled Generation Friends . The latter who had the privilege of interviewing Marta Kauffman and David Crane thus reported this funny anecdote according to which the channel NBC reportedly asked the showrunners to add a seventh character to the strip. Named “Pat the Cop”, the latter much older than his comrades would have allowed “to attract more mature viewers “.

The reason ? The channel feared losing a part of the audience who could not identify with the friends in their twenties. A request that did not really excite Marta Kauffman and David Crane, who nevertheless resolved to add Pat the Cop in the timeline. A protagonist who will ultimately not have the chance to appear on the screen, as the author says: “ The writers made a good faith attempt, they even had the role played, but they hated the resulting script so much that they begged NBC to drop the idea

. NBC was killing Pat the Cop, they promised in return that they would give their six protagonists parents in meaningful roles and find older guests “. It is thanks to this compromise that the worst was avoided!