Before finding fame as Pheobe Buffay on Friends, Lisa Kudrow notably appeared in the pilot for Frasier.

The actress was originally cast as Frasier's producer Roz, though was fired after just one episode and replaced by Peri Gilpin.

Now casting director Jeff Greenberg has opened up about the recasting in a new interview, admitting that it was "horrible" for him to make the switch.

"[The producers] said, 'We'll see any type, age, ethnicity,' so I brought them all of these great comic actresses, and we whittled it down," Greenberg recalled to Entertainment Weekly of the casting process back in the early 1990s.

Showtime

"Kelsey [Grammer] came in and read with five or six of them, and our two favorites were Lisa Kudrow and Peri Gilpin. We tested them at NBC, and they chose Lisa. She was great."

However, when they showed the pilot to a test audience, things started to turn away from Lisa's favour.

"There was so much good confrontation in the scenes at home and a palpable sort of tension. At the radio station, not so much. And they figured out it was because of Lisa's version of Roz.

"You could see Kelsey [as Frasier] was going to be able to railroad her and do what he wanted. She was sort of spacey, and she was funny. But there was not going to be the conflict there."

NBC Universal

"Not knowing who else tested for the part, [producer/director Jim Burrows] said, 'You know who you need in this part? You need Peri Gilpin," Greenberg added.

"He had worked with her a few times, and he said, 'You don't f**k around with Peri. She holds her ground'. They knew that she could go toe-to-toe with Kelsey, so we made the change, and it was horrible because I'm friends with Lisa.

Nothing that the star "didn't do anything wrong", the casting director then recalled the call to Kudrow: "I spoke to her, and she was, of course, the classiest possible person in the world. She said she understood... It was a dark day."

He then broke the news to Gilpin himself, adding: "I found Peri was eating at Orso [a former Hollywood mainstay], and I had her brought to the phone in the bar, and said, 'What are you doing tomorrow?' She said, 'Nothing.' And I said, 'You want to come be our Roz?'

"When I showed up for rehearsal the next morning, she was wearing Lisa's costume saying Roz's lines. They didn't even have time to dry clean the clothes. She was just Roz.

"That turned out to be a happy ending finally for everyone, because the next year, Lisa got Friends."

Well, we guess in hindsight that decision worked out pretty damn well for Lisa.

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