Friends: Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel Green was originally going to be played by a different cast member

Carol star Jane Sibbett said she had been lined up to play Rachel

Rachel Green in Friends will always be synonymous with Jennifer Aniston – but another star has now revealed that they were originally going to be cast in the role.

Aniston’s Friends co-star Jane Sibbett, who played Ross Geller’s (David Schwimmer) ex-wife Carol in the show, has claimed producers had lined her up to play Green. “I actually was up for another character,” she told News.com.au. “They wanted me to be one of the main six.”

Sibbett added: “It was actually Rachel but I usually don’t tell people that because Jen… There’s no one who could’ve done it like Jen.”

The actor said she turned down the role because she was pregnant.

“I asked them [her agents] if they’d told the producers I was pregnant and they said, ‘Oh no, we thought we’d tell them later.’ And I said, ‘No you’ve got to tell them now.’ So obviously [the producers] said it wouldn’t work out.”

She said she has “no regrets” and says there is “no way anybody could have come close to what Jennifer Aniston did with Rachel”.

Aniston recently reacted to news of the long-awaited Friends reunion being delayed yet again, saying she was “very sad” it’s been postponed.

The unscripted HBO Max special was originally scheduled to shoot in mid-March. When productions were shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was then pushed back to May, and then again to August, and then again indefinitely.