The Surprising Friends Characters Who Were Almost Roommates
Something that quite a few fans have commented upon, after 10 seasons of "Friends" — and almost two decades of reruns — is just how small the titular friends group really is. Whenever the friends have a party, there are these one-off background characters, without lines, that fill Monica's (Courteney Cox) absurdly huge New York City apartment — but it's rare that they even have names. Who are they? How do they know the main characters? We don't know and we don't especially care.
To add to that, the few times that one of the primary friends got a new roommate, the group wound up forcing them out pretty quickly. For instance, the Season 2 roommate of Chandler (Matthew Perry), Eddie (Adam Goldberg), turned out to have some sort of delusional psychosis, and Janine (Elle Macpherson) left Joey's (Matt LeBlanc) apartment after they broke up. Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) even mentions that the group used to have a friend named Kip who was at one point Chandler's roommate, but Kip got edged out after breaking up with Monica — and when Ross (David Schwimmer) is forbidden from seeing Rachel, she becomes convinced the group is going to "Kip" her.
So when Rachel moved out of Monica's apartment in Season 6, fans took it for granted that she'd probably wind up moving in with another member of the primary group. After all, such was the "Friends" way. But in reality, it wasn't always going to turn out like that.
Rachel almost moved in with ... Gunther?!
Gunther, everyone's favorite coffee shop manager, was at one point floated as a potential new roomie for Rachel.
This revelation came right from Gunther actor James Michael Tyler, who appears in "Friends" almost as much as the main cast. In 2019, he told Metro UK that the idea was tossed around, but didn't feel like a natural development. "It just didn't read, even to me. I was not ungrateful that it didn't work," he said. "Through no fault of Jennifer or myself or the writing, it just felt contrived and everything else that happened in the series, and continues to be, was quite organic."
According to Tyler, both he and Jennifer Aniston thought the development rang false, and would've taken away from the series.
Gunther's unrequited crush on Rachel would most likely have come to a head if the two were living under the same roof. Gunther's unrequited devotion to her spurred him into action at various times, to do things such as tell her about Ross' fling with the copy girl, and buy her hairless cat. He didn't openly confess his feelings until the last season, after which Rachel gently rejected him.
Most likely, those jokes would have worn thin if the two were in closer contact for an entire storyline. Ironically, keeping Gunther at a distance might have helped his character's staying power.