Why Friends made Jennifer Aniston turn down the leading role in this classic rom-com

Friends star Jennifer Aniston turned down the leading role to one of the most popular romantic comedies, Serendipity. The film’s director recently revealed why.

When you appear in the most popular sitcom, job opportunities are going to rain on you. However, this doesn’t mean you’ll be booking gig after gig.

All movie and TV show stars need to sign a contract, and part of this contract often includes agreeing to work only for them for a certain amount of time. This means no extra jobs while filming (some not even in between seasons). But a contract isn’t the what stopped Aniston from taking on the lead role in Serendipity. 

Friends star Jennifer Aniston almost played Sara Thomas in Serendipity

According to Entertainment Weekly, Serendipity director Peter Chelsom explained why Aniston turned down the role of Sara Thomas in the popular movie.

In an interview with Insider, Chelsom shared that his team met with Aniston to offer her the role and discuss the deal. Aniston was kind enough to meet with Chelsom and turned down the film in person.

Chelsom explains:

"“I remember she [Jennifer Aniston] came in, she said, ‘I do a romantic comedy once a week,’ her being on Friends at the time. So, she clearly had other things on her plate and it was her decision not to do it.”"

This is completely understandable. Friends may be a sitcom, a comedy, but it’s really also a rom-com. For Aniston to want to do anything else while also filming Friends, it would have to be something totally different and exciting. Still, it’s not like she needed an extra gig, the cast of Friends all made $1 million each per episode at one point.

Also close to booking the role was Carla Gugino, who you may know from The Haunting of Hill House and most recently Gunpowder Milkshake, among many other projects.

The role of Sara Thomas went instead to Kate Beckinsale, and she’s wonderful in it! The movie also stars John Cusack as Jonathan Trager.

After Friends, Jennifer Aniston stuck with rom-coms, some of our favorite include Along Came Polly, The Break-Up, Just Go With It, and more.