A veteran actor recalls losing out on the role of playing Phoebe’s love interest on Friends. The iconic sitcom is one of the relatively few series which, because of its enduring popularity, means that even the smallest and most minor guests can still be recognized for their performances decades later. That is doubly true for someone who was cast to play a recurring love interest to one of the main Friends characters.
Speaking with The A.V. Club, in conjunction with his current role on the HBO comedy series Somebody Somewhere, Tim Bagley reflects on his career and recalls losing out on the opportunity to recur opposite Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe’s love interest. Bagley mentions that he was set to play a health inspector before, as he says, he got fired. The actor goes on to explain that he was cast in the short-lived Friends spinoff Joey, in a different role, which gave him the chance to ask producer Kevin S. Bright about what really happened. Bagley’s full remarks are below:
I really love Marta Kauffman, and I had a great experience on Grace And Frankie. It was a joy to work with Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, you can imagine. I mean, the stories that I got from them and what I learned from them. And Lily [Tomlin] and Jane [Fonda] as well! But I think the story I would choose to say about that was…I had been on Friends years ago, and I got fired after two or three days. And I was supposed to play a love interest for Lisa Kudrow. It was supposed to be an extended role, a recurring role. He came in and graded the restaurants, a health inspector, so he’d be, like, “You get an A!” and “You get a B!” or whatever. And then I got fired, and…let’s see, how do I do this shortly?
Years later, after talking all my friends’ ears off about how horrible it was to be fired off Friends, as you can imagine, I got hired to do a role with Jennifer Coolidge on Joey, which was a spin-off. The three executive producers of Friends were Marta Kauffman, David Crane, and Kevin Bright. And Kevin Bright produced Joey. When I was on that show, I thought the whole week, “Oh, I’m gonna be fired.” And after the show, he came up to my dressing room and said to me, “I’ve been such a fan of yours, and you were so great to do our show. You were wonderful. Thank you for doing it.” And I said, “Well, that means so much to me, coming from you, in light of our history.” And he was, like, “What history?” And I said, “Well, I’m talking about what happened on Friends.” And he said, “What happened on Friends?” And I said, “I was fired.” He said, “Who fired you?” I said, “You did!” And he said, “Why?” And I said, “You said that they were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole!” Then he said, “Well, we fired people all the time. What was the role?” And I told him, and he said, “I remember that role! It was supposed to recur, but it wasn’t written well, so we ended up cutting it and cutting it, and it ended up being a one-time co-star with just a few lines, and we never brought it back. And we tried three different actors in that role!” So, then I felt good about it.
And then the next one was David Crane. He created Episodes. So I went and did one of the episodes of that, and he kept looking at me, and I kept saying to myself, “No matter what, Tim, don’t bring up Friends. Just don’t tell him about it. It’ll come to him or it won’t.” Then he said, “I keep wondering where we met, and I can’t figure out where we met!” And I just looked at him. And he goes, “Maybe through Lisa Kudrow?” And I said, “Yes, I think it was probably through Lisa.” Because Lisa and I had been in the Groundlings together. So I left it alone, and I didn’t say anything.
And then when I went to do Grace And Frankie—and that was a straight offer; I didn’t have to audition—Marta came down on that first day, and she shook my hand, and she’s like, “I’ve been such a fan of yours over the years; it’s such a pleasure to meet you!” And I said, “The pleasure is all mine!” And I never brought up Friends or said anything about it. I just thought, “Things happen.” They don’t remember. None of them remembered firing me. It was not important to them. Even though my friends at some point literally banned me from talking about Friends anymore. [Laughs] They were like, “You’ve said too much; you can’t talk about it anymore.” So it was big to me, but it meant nothing to them. And I just…I don’t know, it was such a good lesson for me, in that I felt like, “You can’t hold onto these old things. You just have to move forward and know that change is imminent.”
Phoebe’s Health Inspector Love Interest, Explained
He Was A (Very Brief) Foe Of Monica’sThe health inspector role that Bagley is referring to was ultimately played by Gregory Sporleder, who went on to recur as Calvin Norris on HBO’s True Blood. The health inspector was named Larry. He appears in just one episode of Friends, the season
