Matthew Perry ‘begged’ Friends producers to get rid of this essential Chandler Bing character trait
Actor eventually took matters into his own hands
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Matthew Perry has said he “begged” Friends producers to get rid of a signature Chandler characteristic.
The actor – who played Chandler Bing in the 10-season comedy series – made a number of revelations about his time on the show in his memoir, titled Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
Reflecting on his time starring in the series, which ran from 1994 to 2004, Perry said he was annoyed with his character’s signature intonation and wanted to change Chandler’s voice.
In an excerpt published by Variety, he wrote that he “had to beg the producers” to stop writing his lines this way.
Riffing on his character’s catchphrase, Perry wrote: “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.”
Perry, 53, claimed that he had actually created “Chandler speak” himself, when he was a child living in Ottawa, Canada, and trying to be a comedian.
“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 explains, per Deadline.
The actor also revealed that he had asked co-creator Marta Kauffman if Chandler could say the last ever line of dialogue in the show. She accepted his request.
The final exchange in season 10, which takes place in Monica’s (Courteney Cox) apartment sees Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) asking the gang to get coffee, to which Chandler responds: “Sure. Where?”
His response is, of course, sarcastic given that the group always frequent the Central Perk coffee house downstairs.
Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing is available now.
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