Tom Hanks missed out on one of the most memorable guest appearances in Friends because he couldn’t get away from a film shoot in time.
The actor was offered the role of Sandy, the nanny hired by Ross and Rachel to look after their daughter, Emma.
In the episode, the fact that Sandy is a man causes issues for Ross, but Sandy eventually gets him to open up about his insecurities.
Freddie Prinze Jr, who plays the character in season nine, episode six (“The One with the Male Nanny”), made the revelation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be [Sandy], that was originally offered to Tom Hanks,” he said. “But he wasn’t gonna make it back from his film on time.
“So my agent called me and said, ‘Do you want to be on Friends?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do an episode of Friends. That’ll be great.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it shoots tomorrow.'”
Prinze Jr also revealed that the scene where he plays Emma a rendition of “Greensleeves” on the recorder was something he had to learn in a matter of hours.
“I had just learned for the last like four hours of my day there how to play ‘Greensleeves’ on the recorder because I’d never played it before,” he said.
This week, it was also revealed that a Friends reunion of the six main cast members – an event fans have been demanding for years – may finally be happening.
According to reports, David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry, along with the show’s creators, are in talks to return for an HBO special celebrating the hit sit-com’s 25th anniversary.
