Matthew Perry's Friends Character Was Almost Played By Another Huge Sitcom Actor

Now more than ever, it's impossible to see anyone but sitcom legend Matthew Perry playing the role of Chandler Bing on the hit NBC series "Friends." Yet, he was but one of many young actors who auditioned for the role, competing with everyone from unknown hopefuls to established film, television, and theater stars.

Jon Cryer was one such star, who had caught the attention of series co-creator Marta Kauffman while she was casting the pilot for "Six of One" in 1994. Though the multi-hyphenate artist is now best known for starring in the long-running Fox program "Two and a Half Men" (alongside Charlie Sheen and, eventually, Ashton Kutcher), his brush with Central Perk came at a very different point in his trajectory toward stardom.

A little less than a decade after his breakout role in "Pretty in Pink," Cryer was dancing across mediums with seeming ease; in January of 1994, he played the leading role in Paul Shapiro's cult crime-comedy feature "Heads," then headed to London to join the world premiere of David Beaird's soon-to-be Olivier Award-nominated new play "900 Oneota." While in rehearsals, Cryer was apparently called at 3 a.m. by none other than Kauffman herself, all but offering him the role of Chandler. Things went downhill shortly afterward, however, perhaps in the most "Chandler" way possible.

After Marta Kauffman called Jon Cryer about auditioning for the show that would become "Friends" ("Six of One" was the first name the series used, before it was renamed "Friends Like Us"), he recalls being immediately intrigued by the prospect. He told James Corden in an interview, "I thought, 'This sounds interesting,' and [Kauffman] said, 'Well, the part that I want you for is named Chandler Bing.'"

According to Cryer, he met with a casting director in London to record the audition for Chandler, the tape of which she would then bring back to the United States for final review and casting by Kauffman and NBC — that is, if there hadn't been a massive stroke of bad luck in transit. "I went in [to the audition]. I did my best ... she packaged up the tape of me doing my best Chandler Bing, sent it to Los Angeles, and it got stuck in customs," he admitted. Thus, no one at NBC ever got the chance to see Cryer read for Chandler — though it's hard to imagine he would've been cast over Matthew Perry even if they had.