Friends star Matthew Perry says he begged to change one part of his Chandler Bing portrayal. The Emmy nominee recently released a memoir in which he detailed his battles with addiction and how that affected his on-screen work. But away from those very personal and honest revelations, the book includes some more lighthearted passages — Perry talks about his crush on Friends castmate Jennifer Aniston and how he got Bruce Willis to guest star based on a bet.
One of the most interesting notes from the memoir came when Perry talked about the thought that went into Chandler's iconic way of speaking. The actor noted that more than just speaking in an interesting way, it was about applying emphasis in a way that a listener wouldn't expect. Chandler's cadence and mannerisms, often asking 'could I be?', quickly caught out with fans and have since become easily identifiable even for viewers that didn't watch the NBC sitcom. Still, Perry admits, he got pretty sick of it.
In his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry says that he essentially begged the producers of Friends to ditch Chandler's cadence by the show's second half. In the quote below, via Variety, the actor discusses his irritation with his character's particular cadence and how he went about ditching it:
“That particular cadence — could it BE more annoying? — had been so played out that if I had to put the emphasis in the wrong place one more time, I thought I’d explode, so I just went back to saying lines normally, for the most part in season six and then beyond.”
Why Perry Was Right To Change Chandler After Season 6
Actors generally like the challenge of doing something different, which can be difficult when the performer is part of a long-running series that has already established its rhythms and patterns. It was tough in the case of Friends, which showed a tendency to lean into broad humor late in its run. The show would rely on the familiar joke: Joey being a little slow, Monica being a lot obsessive, and it would occasionally run the risk of turning beloved characters into broad caricatures. Perry clearly took issue with his character's cadence becoming a near-parody of itself and worked hard to change his delivery in later seasons.
In a small way, perhaps, Perry's choice to steer away from some of Chandler's obvious traits kept the character nuanced and fresh. It didn't always work, of course, but late in its run, when Chandler and Monica were both dealing with very emotional storylines about family and the struggles of conception, it mattered that Chandler wasn't just the funny guy on Friends. It mattered to move away from what the audience might expect to offer a depiction of a character that has grown and matured.
Source: Variety