The 1997 opportunity came days after Daily had welcomed her first baby
Credit: TBS/YouTube
NEED TO KNOW
- E.G. Daily already had experience acting on-screen and in animation when she got the opportunity to audition for a guest role on Friends
- Daily appeared in a 1997 episode where she played Leslie, Phoebe’s estranged singing partner who seeks her out with the hopes of working together again
- The actress, 64, tells PEOPLE about auditioning and getting the part, which is one that fans continue to remember nearly three decades later
E.G. Daily began juggling as a working mom very early on.
The actress, 64, was newly postpartum when she got the call from her agent to audition for a guest spot on Friends. In a recent catch-up with PEOPLE, Daily shared how she came to play Leslie, Phoebe Buffay’s estranged singing partner in an episode titled “The One with Phoebe’s Ex-Partner.”
Daily told PEOPLE, “I’d just given birth to my first daughter and my agent had called me at night and said, ‘Can you run over and do this audition really quick for this Friends episode?’ And I loved the show, but I had just had a baby. I was just home from the hospital, very recently. I was kind of like, ‘Wow, I don’t know if I can do it.’ ”
“My agent was like, ‘Just try, just try. Just go over there.’ They really need somebody. They have to replace, again, replace someone. And they knew I was a singer who could play guitar, and they needed someone who did that,” she recalled.
She agreed on the condition that she could bring her baby along. “I brought the baby in a car seat and I brought a guitar and a guitar case. And I went to the office at like 8:00 at night or something late, because it was a last-minute replacement thing. And I put the baby down. I played guitar and sang and did these lines. And then the next thing you know, I left and went home,” Daily shared.
Credit: tbs
Daily thought that would be the end of it until her agent called and shared that she was cast in the episode. “Then I had to go into overload and get mom and all of my tribe to go take care of the baby while I went and shot the episode,” she laughed.
The actress explained that the opportunity was “a beautiful thing” that she didn’t fully recognize at the time.
“I loved that show, but I didn’t realize. Until this day, people will walk up to me on the street and go, ‘Aren’t you this girl that’s in the “Smelly Cat” episode with Phoebe?’ You never think that when you’re doing it,” she shared.
“The day after I got the call, I walked on the set and they introduced me to the director. This is the very next day. And that director was Robby Benson, who was one of my favorite actors back in the day when he did this movie called Ice Castles. And I had such a crush on Robby Benson that I walked to the set and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Robby Benson. Robby Benson’s my director. Oh my God.’ It was such a full circle moment for me,” Daily recalled.
Today, Daily continues to enjoy success in all her creative endeavors. When she isn’t voice acting or making music, she’s enjoying time catching up with friends, family and fans.
“I just feel really lucky that I was able to just maneuver myself in a way where I didn’t feel stupid. I was able to do something that actually made such an impact on the world. And over and over again — whether it’s an on-camera project, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which is also historical, Valley Girl, all the cartoons, all the music that I have out there, even current music — I just feel super lucky that I seized the moment and I didn’t let anybody tell me that it was silly or stupid,” she shared.
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Credit: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic
Daily admitted there are moments where she questions her path, calling those “some of the darkest moments for me.” She credited connecting with fans at events such as conventions with helping her get through.
“Where I went, which is terrible anxiety and depression, led to me not doing the things that I’m about, that I love, that actually create such an impact on humans. And I promised myself after the last major anxiety-depression thing I went through that I would never stop doing what I do,” she said.
“Because when I go do a Comic-Con and people walk up to me and they cry because I’ve been able to impact their childhood in such a way, I think I am the luckiest person on the planet. That’s how I feel,” she concluded. “Over and over again, you see people that remember your lines, remember your voices, remember your songs, sing them to you. There’s just nothing like it.”
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