Matthew Perry And Matt LeBlanc Once Competed For The Same 'Horrible' Movie
There are a lot of actors in the world and only a finite amount of roles, so it's not usually surprising to hear that two actors who worked together both tried out for the same role at some point. Heck, the guys from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" even met while auditioning for the same roles in New York City, so there's a lot of actor crossover at different auditions. One of the more surprising battles for a role, however, comes from the late Matthew Perry and his "Friends" co-star, Matt LeBlanc. The two would become close friends while filming the 10 seasons of "Friends," but once upon a time in the mid-1990s, they were role rivals for the starring role in... a movie about a baseball-playing ape. I know animals playing sports were really big in the 90s, thanks to "Air Bud," but "Ed" arrived the year before. So maybe we can thank "Dunston Checks In."
In the retrospective "Friends — 'Til the End : The One With All Ten Years," LeBlanc revealed that his very first movie was the 1996 kids flick "Ed," and Matthew Perry had almost gotten the role instead of him!
LeBlanc's early career was a little hairy
In the retrospective, LeBlanc was being interviewed and was asked about the backlash that happened to the "Friends" cast after the series became a hit, and they were out promoting the show basically everywhere. When asked if critics went after some of the actors' early movies as a part of the backlash, LeBlanc was candid:
"Well, speaking for myself, my first movie was with a monkey who played third baseman. I knew I had to choose a little more wisely. Matt Perry has a really funny story about that. I beat him out for that horrible movie. Hey, it was for kids. I saw little kids enjoy it with my own eyes, for whatever that's worth."
Little kids were probably the only people who enjoyed "Ed," which features a man in a chimp costume as the titular ape, but it was a paycheck for LeBlanc, and he was still pretty early in his acting career, "Friends" or no. (The TV series debuted in 1994 and "Ed" hit theaters in 1996, but it was probably filmed in 1995 or 1994.) By contrast, Perry's first movie role was in "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon," a little-known River Phoenix movie from 1988. The best theatrical debut by any of the "Friends" comes courtesy of Jennifer Aniston, who starred in "Leprechaun" long before "Friends" came along, but they all managed to get better roles once they were the stars of the hit NBC sitcom.
No love lost over a lost role
It would have been easy for there to be jealousy or resentment between Perry and LeBlanc after the former lost out on the role, but Perry had nothing but good things to say about his co-star of over a decade. In his memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," he explained that he initially was a little jealous of LeBlanc, but the fellow actor's personality made it impossible:
"It didn't help that Matt was very good-looking — he had leading man looks, even to the point where I was a little jealous of that when I first saw him. But he was so nice and funny that any jealousy I had soon disappeared."
Perry an LeBlanc had a beautiful friendship that mirrored that of their fictional counterparts, roommates and BFF's Joey and Chandler. A little monkey business could never change that.