Casting
Monica is portrayed by American actress Courteney Cox.
Crane and Kauffman had written the role of Monica with comedienne Janeane Garofalo in mind, because they were drawn to her "edgier and snarkier" voice. However, Garofalo turned down the offer. Actress Jami Gertz was also offered the role but declined, while actress Leah Remini auditioned for Monica prior to guest starring as a pregnant single mother in an early episode. Kristin Davis also auditioned, and later guest starred in the episode "The One with Ross's Library Book".
A close competitor for the role of Monica was actress Nancy McKeon; Littlefield recalled having greatly enjoyed Cox and McKeon's auditions equally, and left the final decision up to Crane and Kauffman. Ultimately, Cox won the role over McKeon because the creators noticed "something fresh" in her audition; Kauffman elaborated that Cox ultimately "brought a whole bunch of other colors" to Monica than what they had first envisioned back when they were considering Garofalo for the part.
Before being cast as Monica in Friends, Cox was best known for appearing in singer Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" music video; within the television industry for her recurring role as Lauren Miller, Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend, on the sitcom Family Ties; and Melissa Robinson in the comedy film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), opposite Jim Carrey. After guest starring on the sitcom Seinfeld as Meryl, main character Jerry Seinfeld's girlfriend, the producers offered Cox the role of Monica's spoiled best friend Rachel because the actress "had this cheery, upbeat energy", which was significantly different from how they had envisioned Monica at the time. Feeling she was not "quirky" enough to portray Rachel, Cox lobbied in favor of playing Monica instead because she was drawn to the character's "strong" personality, but the producers feared that she was not "tough" enough for the role, which was offered to actress Jennifer Aniston, alongside whom Cox would eventually co-star. Meanwhile, Aniston ultimately won the role of Rachel.
Each main cast member auditioned for Friends having had some degree of prior sitcom experience. Before finally being cast in Friends, Cox's burgeoning success as an actress had heavily relied on her physical appearance. Unlike her previous roles in projects such as Family Ties and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the Los Angeles Times Steve Weinstein believes that Monica was the first major role in which Cox was cast based on her abilities as a comedic actress as opposed to her beauty. Cox believes that she owes winning the role to her brief stint as Gabriella Easden on the short-lived sitcom The Trouble with Larry, which she considers to be the first time she played a character who "was the funny one", which in turn earned the actress a recommendation for Friends following its cancellation.
When Friends premiered, Cox was the show's most famous main cast member among a cast of young, relatively unknown actors, and was thus initially perceived by critics and audiences as the show's star, despite Crane and Kauffman's efforts to promote Friends as an ensemble comedy. According to actress Lisa Kudrow, who portrays Phoebe, Cox is responsible for suggesting that the entire cast work together as a team. As the most experienced cast member at the time, Cox advised her co-stars to remain open to each other's ideas, notes and suggestions, while giving them permission to tell her "If I could do anything funnier".
Cox was the highest-paid cast member. Preferring to be treated as equals, the entire cast negotiated for universal salaries, demanding that Warner Bros. accommodate their request of $100,000 per episode in season three, increased from their original inaugural season salary of $22,000 per episode. At one point, the actors went as far as threatening to boycott their own show should their demands be denied, temporarily refusing to renew their expired contracts. The studio eventually complied, and by season 10 each actor was being paid $1 million per episode, making Cox and her female co-stars the highest-paid television actresses of all time.
Cox was 29 years old at the time she was cast, making her the show's second oldest main cast member, and was 39 by the beginning of Friends' final season. Additionally, this distinction makes Cox older than her on-screen brother, actor David Schwimmer, who portrays her older brother Ross, who is one year her senior. The actress would deliver Monica's lines emphatically.
Although each character is depicted as an avid coffee drinker, spending much of their free time in a coffee house, Cox herself does not drink coffee, and was only pretending to drink it out of mugs on the show. Kauffman believes that Cox's own cleanliness closely resembles her character's; at times the actress would clean her co-stars' dressing rooms. Cox also shares the character's motherly nature. The actress enjoyed portraying Monica as she was able to "bring more of my own personality to her, and I've never really been able to do that before."
Starpulse.com observed that "As Monica, Cox never quite enjoyed the sort of watercooler storylines that co-star ... Jennifer Aniston had with David Schwimmer as the on-again, off-again Rachel and Ross." At one point, Cox had begun to regret her decision to accept the role of Monica over Rachel due to the character's lack of strong storylines; she eventually relented once Monica and Chandler became romantically involved, thus her character's storylines gradually began to improve.
Cox married actor David Arquette in 1999 while the show was on hiatus between seasons five and six, hence the actress legally changed her full name to Courteney Cox Arquette. The opening credits of the season six premiere "The One After Vegas" features an inside joke in which Cox's new surname "Arquette" is attached to the surnames of each cast and crew member. The episode is dedicated to Cox and Arquette, reading, "For Courteney and David, who did get married." Before marrying Cox, Arquette had guest starred in an episode of Friends as Phoebe's love interest. During season 10, Cox got pregnant with her and Arquette's child. At that same time, her character and on-screen husband were going through the process of adopting a child. Like Monica and Chandler, Cox and Arquette had also struggled with conceiving in real life. Although Kudrow's real-life pregnancy had successfully been written into the show, the same could not have been done for Cox because Friends had already long-established that Monica is incapable of having children. Therefore, the crew attempted to conceal Cox's pregnancy using a combination of baggy, loose-fitting costumes and props instead. However, at times the actress' growing belly was still detectable by viewers in spite of the crew's best efforts.
