Jessica Hecht remembers auditioning for Friends' Monica before landing role as Susan

Jessica Hecht, who played Susan on Friends, recently revealed that she first auditioned for the character of Monica Geller. Speaking with Parade, the three-time Tony Award nominee broke down how the experience came about and looked back on her initial encounter with the legendary show.Hecht, who is 59, said the audition for Monica was a referral from a connection to casting director Ellie Kanner, with whom she grew up in her hometown of Bloomfield, Connecticut. "I knew the casting director in high school. I am from a small town outside of Hartford, Connecticut, called Bloomfield," she said. "The only other cast or crew member from my town is Anika Noni Rose.". But there was this woman, Ellie Kanner.Remembering how the audition took place, Hecht went on, "I was in Los Angeles, and my agent said, 'Oh, I submitted your picture to this casting director for Friends. There's one role, they don't know if the actor will do.". They need to go look at some other actors, and I think she knows you from high school.' So I went in, mostly looking forward to seeing Ellie Kanner, and then they began reading me for Monica."Although she didn't get the role of Monica, Hecht went on to play Susan, Ross Geller's ex-wife Carol's wife and girlfriend, later. She was in over a dozen episodes, starting with the second episode of season one of the show.Looking back on the early stages of Friends, Hecht has stated, "If you're at the starting point, you have no idea what it's going to be. So you're just there helping them try to find out what the show is. And you don't feel the burden of its past, because it doesn't have one."Hecht's acting as Susan was a memorable aspect of the show, helping to become part of one of the series' first returnee storylines.