Tom Hanks Was Supposed to Guest Star on “Friends”

Tom Hanks at the American Cinematheque Awards, Los Angeles, Nov 2017. Photo by David Buchan/Variety/REX/Shutterstock (9218208l)

Freddie Prinze Jr. reveals that Sandy was supposed to be played by the Oscar winning actor. 

The 200th episode of the iconic sitcom titled “The One With the Male Nanny” starred Prinze as the titular character. But now we learn that the sensitive “manny” who Ross (David Schwimmer) doesn’t approve of was supposed to be portrayed by none other than Tom Hanks. 

“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,” Prinze told Entertainment Weekly. “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.’”

It all worked out perfectly and despite not approving of his character on screen, Schwimmer and Prize got on very well off screen.

“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.’”

Warner Bros. and reps for Hanks had not comment.