How is Jennifer Aniston connected to this 'The Big Bang Theory' cast member? Details about the Friends star's early sitcom appearance, revealed

Jennifer Aniston had been working on a handful of short-lived TV shows that barely made it to the cultural radar before she became the global style icon and TV royalty we all know from Friends! The catch, though, is that one of those "flops" unexpectedly connects her to The Big Bang Theory.

And no, it's not because Kaley Cuoco admits to being a Friends fan!

Mayim Bialik, who would later play the clever Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, worked with a young Jennifer Aniston in the blink-and-you-miss-it sitcom Molloy in 1990. Even though the show only ran on Fox for seven episodes before being cancelled, it became an important chapter in the history of modern TV.

Jennifer Aniston's pre-Rachel Green mean girl role

The primary topic of Molloy was Bialik's character, a young girl grieving the loss of her mother and adjusting to life in LA with her dad's new family, and introducing Aniston as Courtney, Molloy's spoiled stepsister, who looks like a rough draft of Rachel Green in her wildest "daddy's credit card" version!

The recurring conflict between Courtney and Molloy gave the family sitcom unusual stress. It was unseen before that, at least on TV.

Compared to the candy-colored sitcoms of the era, this show dealt with complex topics like divorce, death, and dysfunctional families. Yet, Molloy did not leave a mark on audiences and was tossed regardless of its theme.

For her part, Aniston said, Friends was the first project where she felt like a part of the "cool kids," in a later interview with The New York Times:

“During the first week of shooting, I thought, I'll be heartbroken if this doesn't continue. It was the first time I felt like part of the cool kids.”

In hindsight, Molloy was more of a pit stop before Jennifer Aniston emerged as one of the most popular actors.

Kaley Cuoco’s Jennifer Aniston connection

Bialik is not the last piece of The Big Bang Theory connection. Years before Jennifer Aniston became famous, she met Kaley Cuoco, who played Penny on the well-known CBS sitcom. In Aniston's 1997 romcom Picture Perfect, Cuoco played "Little Girl," a role that was so minor that her only line was cut!

Cuoco shared she spent the day gathering the nerve to tell Aniston how much she loved her on Instagram, recalling the full-circle moment later.

Per Digital Spy, Cuoco wrote,

"She was a gem to me then and a gem to me now."

Since then, Cuoco has revealed that she had a dream that Jennifer Aniston would appear as a guest star on The Big Bang Theory. She even referred to the Friends actor as her "style icon" and "the coolest chick around."

Her awe was evident, though the cameo never came to pass.

The lost sitcom Molloy cast future legends

In the long run, Molloy serves as a unique "what if" scenario in the history of sitcoms. Aniston and Bialik, two future TV stars, starred together on a show that concluded long before their careers took off.

Both women went on to have roles in two of the most successful sitcoms ever and have influenced the genre of TV comedy ever since.

It proves that a discontinued show might act as an avenue to success and is not always a point of no return. While Bialik reinvented herself several years later as the quirky scientist who won Sheldon over, Jennifer Aniston's early roles eventually led to her breakthrough as Rachel Green!

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Watch Jennifer Aniston in Friends on Netflix.

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