Tom Hanks had Friends role

15 November 2019

Tom Hanks was supposed to appear in 'Friends'.

Freddie Prinze Jr

The 'Forrest Gump' actor was offered the role of Sandy, the male nanny of Ross Gellar (David Schwimmer) and Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston)'s baby daughter Emma in the episode 'The One with the Male Nanny' but his commitments to another movie meant Freddie Prinze Jr. was brought in as a last-minute replacement.

Freddie told Entertainment Weekly: "I wasn't even supposed to be [Sandy], that was originally offered to Tom Hanks but he wasn't gonna make it back from his film on time.

"And 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.' And I was like, 'What?' He said, 'Yes, tomorrow so I'll send you the script.'"

Freddie admitted he felt very nervous about the role but David was able to offer him reassurance and advised him just to have fun.

He added: "So I went in and I was totally nervous because it was on the day of shooting. I didn't even get to do a read-through.

"And David Schwimmer walked into my dressing room and he was so cool and so passionate and he had so much energy.

"He came into the room and was like, 'You're going to love this, man. It's like a little two-act play and the crowd is so engaged, and so into it. You'll have a ton of fun, don't worry about a thing.' "

Sandy the 'manny' lasted just one episode as Ross didn't approve of him because of his sensitivity.