Matthew Perry was born on Aug. 19, 1969. He would have turned 57 today. Could there BE anyone more perfect to play Chandler in Friends?
I know, I know. But it turns out, he almost didn't win the role.
Perry died in 2023, but Chandler Bing lives on via 236 episodes and 10 seasons of one of the best sitcoms of all time. How do you build a character as iconic as this one? Today we want to journey through his audition, his approach to character development, and the performance choices that made him stand out in an ensemble cast and become, according to Variety, the "comic soul" of the show.
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How He Came to the Role
Have you ever heard of LAX 2194? Probably not, because it was an unsold 1994 sitcom pilot about Los Angeles International Airport baggage-claim handlers… in the year 2194. Attached stars included Ryan Stiles, Kelly Hu, and Matthew Perry. (If you're really curious, you can find snippets of footage and pictures online, but generally it's considered lost media.)
All that to say that Perry was contractually locked into that comedy, and the Chandler role had already been offered to Craig Bierko. The show at that time was called Six of One. But then the 2194 pilot was not picked up, and Bierko passed (even though Perry advised him not to). Perry was able to step in just in time.
It's a great example of being aware of opportunities around you and jumping at them. Edward Norton needed a similar awareness to get an audition for Primal Fear.
"I Was Chandler"
When he got his hands on the pilot (and the title of the show had changed by then to Friends Like Us), it seemed like destiny, according to the way he tells it. In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big, Terrible Thing, he wrote (via Deadline):
"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 … It wasn't that I thought I could play 'Chandler'; I was Chandler."
The only way to get an actor to feel that way as a writer is to know your character super well and to make them big on the page. If you go small and basic, the response is likely to be bland, too.
When we say big characters, we mean go big. Almost cartoonish, if you need to. Write the biggest, silliest version of a person you can, because you can always write it back or tweak during a performance. One of my favorite experiences is handing an actor pages and seeing them get the voice immediately because there's no other way to interpret it. That's what Perry felt with Chandler.
Inventing Chandler's Voice
It feels weird to mimic Chandler's specific tonality because it seems like Perry is the only one who could pull it off. Anyone else does it (including me), and it feels stupid. Although he clearly saw himself in the character already, he brought something more to it by giving him unique mannerisms.
"I read the words in an unexpected fashion, hitting emphases that no one else had hit. I was back in Ottawa with my childhood friends the Murrays; I got laughs where no one else had," he wrote in his memoir.
Because it went well, he took it to the set, too.
"I was talking in a way that no one had talked in sitcoms before, hitting odd emphases, picking a word in a sentence you might not imagine was the beat."
The writers eventually got in on it, too.
"I was once told that the writers would underline the word not usually emphasized in a sentence just to see what I would do with it."
'Friends' Credit: NBC
How He Balanced the Cast
Each character on the sitcom had their own eccentricities. Phoebe was a woo-woo airhead, Monica was uptight, Ross was awkward, Rachel was a little superficial, Joey was a clueless heartthrob. If you consider the average Friends scene, Chandler was often a straight man playing off Joey's or Ross' ridiculousness, being incisive with his sarcasm, and providing a reliable button. He was uptight and relatable enough that when he fell for Monica, it was both surprising and endearing.
Perry said at a televised cast reunion in 2021 (via Deadline):
“I felt like I was gonna die if [the live audience] didn’t laugh. And it’s not healthy for sure. But I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh, and I would sweat and… and just, like, go into convulsions. If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out. I felt like that every single night.”
Maybe a little of that eccentricity came through in Chandler's nervous energy. There's a kind of alchemy necessary to create diverse characters that can carry 10 seasons, and cast them with personalities big enough to inhabit them for just as long.
Why We Still Love Chandler
We recently talked about Friends and its enduring legacy, and how a show about six compatriots still ranks above other popular shows in fan rankings. Chandler was always my favorite character.
When Perry died, The Atlantic mused on how in the hands of a lesser actor, the character might have gone bland and boring.
“But Chandler was played by Matthew Perry, and the casting made all the difference. Perry, who died this weekend at the age of 54, was as gifted a dramatic actor as he was a comedic one. And he summoned both talents to create a character who is indelible precisely because he is so much more than merely funny. Perry gave Chandler a quality that is common among real people and rare among sitcom characters: vulnerability.”
Sitcoms are still thriving in today's TV landscape, including in spin-offs and revivals. But nothing quite does it like Friends did. Who is your favorite Friends character?
