Matthew Perry Almost Missed Out On Friends Because Of A Terrible Sci-Fi Sitcom
The world was rocked this weekend by the passing of actor Matthew Perry, only 54 years old and best known for his role as "Chandler Bing" on "Friends" — the sitcom for which "popular" doesn't begin to describe its reputation. And yet, Perry could have missed out on the part that made him famous and ended up on the wrong side of a Hollywood "what-if" story. The actor recounted the close call in his memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," published in 2022 and written in a conversational (and occasionally vulgar) style.
Let's set the scene: It's 1994 and Perry has a part in a sitcom pilot. Not on "Friends," but on "L.A.X. 2194." You've probably never heard of it (because, spoiler alert, it wasn't picked up for a series). It's a workplace comedy about baggage handlers at Los Angeles International Airport ... but set in the year 2194. The leads (including Perry, Kelly Hu, and Ryan Stiles), draped in futuristic costumes right out of "Star Wars," would be handling the luggage of alien tourists.
Perry details the premise twice, to hammer in for the reader how ridiculous it was. Still, he was booked on the pilot, and even had the wardrobe fitted for his needs, so he couldn't take any more parts in the foreseeable future. That's why, when he got the script for a pilot that was then titled "Friends Like Us," it was a "disaster."
"When I read the script for 'Friends Like Us' it was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn't that I thought I could play 'Chandler,' I was Chandler."
Fortunately, to quote Avril Lavigne, whatever's meant to be will work out perfectly.
A friend like Craig
Perry's pleas to his agents "every three to four days" for an audition to play Chandler fell on deaf ears, because he was already committed to "L.A.X. 2194." Rubbing salt in the wound, his friend Craig Bierko (pictured above in the 1999 movie "The Thirteenth Floor") soon got offered the part of Chandler and the lead role in a competing pilot, "Best Friends."
Bierko called Perry for advice. He also called upon their mutual pal Hank Azaria, who actually auditioned (twice) for the role of Joey in "Friends Like Us." Azaria later went on to have a recurring guest role in "Friends" as a love interest for Phoebe. ("Performances for which he won an Emmy," Perry notes. "I did 237 episodes and won nothing.") At the breakfast meeting where the three reviewed both parts, Perry was torn between his own longing to play Chandler and wanting to give honest advice to his friend:
"The three of us read those two scripts that morning, though I already knew 'Friends Like Us' off by heart, and it was clear which one he should take. My heart sank, because I knew I was Chandler, but I also wasn't an a**hole. I was crushed. We both told Craig to do 'Friends Like Us.'"
Whether it was a karmic reward for doing the right thing or just plain luck, things took a turn. To Perry's surprise and delight, Bierko instead chose to do "Best Friends" ("I couldn't believe my f***ing ears"), leaving Chandler open for Perry to audition.
The audition
There was an upside to Perry's many weeks spent coveting the role of Chandler in "Friends Like Us" but being blocked from auditioning: by the time he actually did get to his audition, he didn't even need the script.
The audition came about, according to the actor's memoir, when NBC producer Jamie Tarses asked her then-husband, Fox producer Dan McDermott, "Hey, is the show L.A.X. 2194 going to get picked up?" and he replied, "No, it's awful." Sure enough, "L.A.X. 2194" failed to find a distributor and Perry was free to explore other options. He did get paid $22,500 for the pilot, and there's a trailer for it online, along with a few photos of Perry in his futuristic vest (as seen above). Freshly liberated, he went to his "Friends Like Us" audition without any pages in hand.
"I knew the script so well by this point. Of course, I nailed it. Thursday, I read for the production company, and nailed it, and Friday I read for the network. Nailed it again. I read the words in an unexpected fashion, hitting emphases that no one else had hit."
The "Murray-Perry Cadence," as Perry describes Chandler's unique manner of speaking, is co-credited to two of his childhood friends, Chris and Brian Murray. "Since third grade we'd developed a way of talking that went, 'Could it be any hotter?' or 'Could the teacher be any meaner?' or 'Could we be more in detention?'" The "Friends" writers were so enthralled by it, according to Marta Kauffman, that they would sometimes underline a word that wasn't usually emphasized in the script, just to see what Perry would do with it.
Chandler Bing was the last main character to be cast in "Friends," but while Perry's road to landing the role was long and stressful, there's no doubt that he absolutely nailed it.