Maggie Wheeler aka Janice was fired from Ellen DeGeneres show before 'Friends'

Maggie Wheeler has revealed that she was fired from Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom before she landed the iconic role of Janice Hosenstein in "Friends".

The actress played the love interest of Chandler Bing in "Friends" which ran between 1994 and 2004.

In a recent interview, the actress revealed that she was fired from Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom after the first season.

"I had been on the first season of the Ellen DeGeneres show and I had a great time working on that show – in the beginning, it was called These Friends Of Mine – and I was fired from that show, I was devastated," Wheeler said.

Maggie Wheeler, 59, added, "I was so shaken by it, it was an unthinkable thing as an actor, (but) I felt in a way liberated to do the work I wanted to do without fear or favour".

Talking about how she ended up on "Friends", she said, "On any other day I might have done the (Friends) audition differently, but it came hot on the heels of that and I felt free and decided to do what I wanted to do on that day and it worked in my favour.

"(Friends) wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had to go through the fire."