One of the shining lights of the last few seasons of Friends was the addition of Paul Rudd.
The Ant-Man star was journey man actor at that stage of his career but shortly after appearing on the show he steadily built a career for himself as one of the no.1 comedy leading men in Hollywood. It's gotten to the point where he's a bigger movie star than any of the main cast of Friends (sorry Jen).
Rudd joined the show in season nine as a love interest for Phoebe and ended up marrying our favourite 'kooky' friend in the final season. However, it turns out, Rudd's Mike wasn't originally intended to end up with Phoebe.
That honour belonged to a former flame of Ms. Buffay, David the scientist (Hank Azaria).
Azaria spoke to The Huffington Post about his time on the show and said that originally David was supposed to return and win Phoebe back. David left for Minsk but he was under the impression the plan was always to bring him back to end up with Phoebe.
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“No, I didn’t know that was the end of David. The plan always was kind of to bring him back.”
However, then Paul Rudd joined the show and was all Paul Rudd about it.
“I think, honestly, what happened was Paul Rudd is so awesome that they sort of found a groove with him and [my character] became more of just the grist for that mill,” said Azaria, who added, “As opposed to the other way around.”
Azaria admits that he was a little bit disappointed with the decision.
“It actually did sting a little bit,” said Azaria. “Whatever part of me is David the science guy who went to Minsk, which admittedly is probably a small part of me [laughs], but that part of me wanted to end up with Phoebe. So I was sort of sad when I didn’t.”
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He does agree though that Rudd was far too charismatic to keep off the show.
“He’s a handsome devil. He’s actually annoyingly handsome. He shouldn’t really be allowed to be that handsome. He’s like the Tom Brady of comedy.”
