It's hard to imagine anyone except Alyssa Milano playing Phoebe Halliwell on Charmed, but she wasn't the original choice for the role. The first pilot for the hour-long, fantasy drama about three good-witch sisters fighting evil and living in San Francisco featured a different actor as Phoebe, alongside Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs as the other Charmed sisters. Airing on the defunct the WB network, the series ran for eight seasons, from 1998 through 2006, and has since been rebooted by the CW with a new cast playing a completely different set of sister witches.
Every week, audiences could tune in to Charmed and reliably find Alyssa Milano there as the rebellious Phoebe. She was the youngest of the trio and gifted with the powers of premonition, levitation, and empathy. She was also trained in martial arts, which added some physical punch to her somewhat passive supernatural capabilities. But it wasn't supposed to be Milano on the screen every week. Lori Rom was originally cast as Phoebe in the short test pilot that was shopped to studios. That episode never aired on television.
Lori Rom was a fresh face when she was cast in Charmed. She left after making the unaired pilot due to what has been described by series creator Constance M. Burge as personal reasons, per In Touch. A couple of different rumors are floating around about what those personal reasons were, but there's nothing concrete. Rom, who went on to land small roles in television's Providence and the film Resident Evil: Degeneration, also has never really explained why she left. What is known is that it was definitely her decision to step away from Phoebe and Charmed.
Charmed producer Aaron Spelling then faced the task of recasting Phoebe. He turned to Alyssa Milano, a proven entity who had previously been on the sitcom Who's the Boss? and in Spelling's Melrose Place. After Charmed landed a deal at the WB, a longer version of the pilot was shot for broadcast with Milano. That's the one that captured the attention of viewers and helped secure Charmed a permanent place on the network's schedule.
Milano was perfect as Charmed's stylish, free-spirited Phoebe. She brought with her a street-smart delivery and a casual attitude that added dimensions to the character. In the unaired pilot, Lori Rom lacked that sort of edge in her performance. She came across as much more buttoned-down and fussy. With Milano, it was smooth, easy, and believable from the very beginning. It was just a much better fit all around, suggesting that the forced decision for Charmed producers to recast Phoebe was a bit of behind-the-scenes magic that paid off well.