Before he became a successful star on Days of Our Lives, Friends' Joey Tribbiani didn't exactly have the best starts in his career as he was shown to be a struggling actor who subsequently went through long periods of unemployment and rejection.
For years, fans watched him try to bolster his resume as he participated in several theater plays, tv shows, ments, and even a quiz in hopes that someone would give him a shot. Unfortunately, it did take him a while to get the recognition he deserved, but the journey there was an entertaining one as the 236 episodes illustrated how many of Joey's auditions failed because of several hilarious hijinks and schemes.
8 Wrong Audition
Season 5, Episode 6, "The One With The Yeti"
Joey committed an audition mistake in "The One with the Yeti," and was a little upset about it. The said episode featured him walking in on Chandler and Monica kissing on the barcalounger in his living room. He asked them to be careful around him, prompting Chandler to ask why he was home early and what had happened to his audition.
Joey then informed the loved-up couple that he'd shown up for a part that asked for a middle-aged woman. This hilarious response had Chandler and Monica giggling. As harrowing as the experience was for Joey, it doesn't take away from the hilarity of a situation involving a grown man not checking the role requirements with his agent beforehand and walking into the wrong audition.
7 Jazz Hands
Season 3, Episode 12, "The One With All The Jealousy"
Joey's resume padding in "The One With All The Jealousy," got him a part in a musical that required dance background and led to one of the funniest dances on Friends. Chandler and Phoebe advised him not to go through with the audition, but Joey showed up at the callback anyway. The director believed that he'd gone through three years of rigorous modern dance with Twyla Tharp and five years with the American Ballet Theater. Things got out of hand when he asked him to instruct a complex dance sequence to the crew.
Joey taught the crew a dozen awful moves of side-to-side hip movements and head bobs and ended the awful sequence with jazz hands. His dance was made of side-splittingly funny slapstick moves and watching a dozen actors perform the same made the audition funnier than it already was. Joey fled the scene to avoid humiliation, and the audition is a memorable example of his NYC Broadway shenanigans.
6 Joey And His Bag
Season 5, Episode 13, "The One With Joey's Bag"
Joey exhibited confidence while sporting a unisex bag in "The One With Joey's Bag," and gave himself grace throughout the audition process. However, he ended up losing out on the part because he couldn't seem to focus on the fact that he had to do one take without it.
Joey exhibited a child-like attachment to the bag and even though the accessory helped him become more confident, he could have listened to the casting directors and auditioned sans the bag. Handbags are indeed pieces of iconography and this memorable audition was only simply about how far a person would go to keep a utilitarian accessory.
5 Glossing Over His Lines Too Quickly And Trying To Add New Parts
Season 2, Episode 19, "The One Where Eddie Won't Go"
Soon after Joey was written out of Days of Our Lives, Ross convinced him to audition for a secondary role he didn't want. Since he'd moved into a plush apartment from Chandler's and was in exorbitant debt, he took the right decision and auditioned for the minor cab driver role ("The One Where Eddie Won't Go").
Joey, however, was down and out and unable to give his best. He talked on and on about his previous gig as Dr. Drake Ramoray on DOOL and misread his lines. The casting director looked at him like he was a clueless child. He wore a rather funny-looking leather cap the whole time that added an extra layer of zany to his shaky demeanor. He talked about expanding his scene by having a car crash and having received good-quality script pages in the past. The incidents of "The One Where Eddie Won't Go" demonstrated that Joey was still incapable of auditing for simple parts despite being in the acting business for years. The icing on the cake was watching Joey see himself out and the casting director looks at him in sheer disbelief.
4 Al Pacino's Butt Double
The lead-up to playing Al Pacino's Butt Double in a shower "The One with the Butt," consists of some terrible Pacino mimicry and Joey's pals are wondering why he was making the questionable workplace choice in Friends, i.e, playing the body double in the first place. But, as a struggling actor, Joey went ahead and auditioned and what's more, emphatically told his friends about Pacino being the reason he got into acting. He prepped for the part by moisturizing, getting rid of what he described as "rogue hair" and later asking the set maintenance workers to set an ideal room temperature.
This audition was one of Joey's early attempts to break into the acting scene. He made a funny speech about getting the opportunity to play the part, clenched while showering and when asked what he was going for, he replied Pacino's "butt would be angry" in the scene. In the next shot, he talked about going for "quiet desperation" and saw himself get fired from the role. Joey's overacting combined with his quirky description of a three-four second shot were laughable and years on, this audition scene is cherished as one of his funniest acting roles in Friends.
3 Joey Speaks French
Season 10, Episode 13, "The One Where Joey Speaks French"
One of Phoebe's funniest Friends episodes - "The One Where Joey Speaks French," features Joey's inability to learn the French language for a play from Phoebe and her, running out of her patience and leaving him be.
When Phoebe fails to teach Joey, he buys an audio course and begins to believe he's making progress by mispronouncing words. Needless to say, Joey blows his audition by speaking gibberish and ends up making quite a spectacle of himself. However, as bad as his French is, his comedic timing is spot on. He mispronounces words with confidence and keeps responding with weird noises, which intensifies his silly act.
2 Joey's Failed Big Budget Audition
Season 7, Episode 19, "The One With Ross And Monica's Cousin"
In "The One With Ross and Monica's Cousin," Joey vied for a role in a big-budget period movie. His first audition went well, but soon as Estelle told him the part demanded full-frontal nudity in a barn scene, he felt a tad uneasy.
Joey eventually went to the callback and learned that he was required to be uncircumcised. He lied once again and enlisted Monica to help him appear uncircumcised. Monica tried her best to fashion a foreskin using luncheon meat, double-sided tape, and whatnot, and he eventually chose silly putty. When Joey went to show the director, the putty fell off right as he took off his pants. Though Joey had flunked many acting auditions before, this one is memorable for he thought he could cheat in a major movie role and sport a fake foreskin that wouldn't fall off.
1 Bursting With Yoo-Hoo
Season 9, Episode 15, "The One With The Mugging"
In "The One With the Mugging," Joey got an audition for a play with the legendary director Leonard Hayes and was rejected. He was advised to "...explore the vertical," to bring credibility to the role. When the producer intervened, Hayes gave him a chance to audition again.
Joey returned to re-audition, late and all fidgety from having one too many Yoo-hoos. Surprisingly, his slapstick movements added an extra dimension to his acting technique and Hayes saw him for who he was - a quirky actor unafraid to lose his inhibitions. Though Joey wasn't up to scratch, his squirmy acting, worked really well for the character. His comedy bounced perfectly off of Hayes who himself played the lead in the play. Joey returned to the final callback, having consumed too many drinks and his intense performance won him the role. The highlight of this intense auditioning process however was watching Joey wet himself while hugging the director and watching Leonard back away in absolute disgust.