Jennifer Aniston ('Friends')
It is unthinkable to think of Friends with an actress in Rachel's skin other than Jennifer Aniston. The love story of the charismatic character with Ross (David Schwimmer) was one of the great axes of the 'sitcom' and the undeniable chemistry of the interpreter with the rest of the series' companions made the comedy one of the most memorable on the small screen. However, Aniston was really close to losing the role, so it's not so strange to speculate what would have happened to Friends without the actress in Green's skin.
In this case, the reason why Jennifer Aniston was about to turn down the role of her life was not so much of her own free will as because of her other professional commitments, since, when the creative team of the series was gathering their cast of actors, she already had a commitment to another fiction, Muddling Through, which was already on the air.
As she explained, the prospect of starring in Friends appealed to her from the beginning, so as the team looked for another possible cast for her character, she begged the producer of her series to let her go. So it was. Curiously, when leaving her, he told her that she was leaving the series that would make her a star and, obviously, she was wrong.
Peter Dinklage ('Game of Thrones)
Peter Dinklage was already a familiar face when he was signed to play Tyrion Lannister, one of the most important characters, in the unforgettable Game of Thrones series. However, it was the HBO series, an adaptation of the literary saga by George R.R. Martin, which gave him the great worldwide fame that he enjoys today. One of the few characters to survive all eight seasons of the show and the first Lannister to be endeared, Dinklage remembers his time on the series with great fondness, but also remembers that he was on the verge of turning down the job at first.
He revealed this during his visit to the recent Telluride Film Festival, where his new film, Cyrano, was being presented. Speaking to IndieWire, Dinklage explained that his initial doubts were related to the stereotypes he believed would be present in the series involving "characters with long beards and pointy shoes." "That's what the fantasy genre has done to people my size. Why do we always have to follow that damn boring formula of pointy shoes and a beard? Who invented that? Why do we keep following that? No need And that's what I told them."
Obviously, Dinklage hadn't read any of Game of Thrones and didn't know anything about his character. "He was just being a jerk," she admits. Far from the initial impression, he would soon discover that what they were proposing was to play one of the richest and most complex characters in the series.
