Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Jamel Smith

Matthew Perry was a talented actor, says owner of Friends-themed cafe

PA Wire

When Matthew Perry was a teenager in Ottawa, Canada, he developed a dryly sarcastic manner of talking that was a big hit with his friends. At high school, he had discovered that he could use humour to get people’s attention – and attention and validation were what he craved. Muttering behind the back of a particularly belligerent teacher, he would say, “Could he be any meaner?”, to hoots of laughter.

Ten years later, reading the early scripts for Friends, a series about a group of twentysomething New Yorkers who lived in and out of each other’s apartments, Perry found a kindred spirit in the character of Chandler Bing, who used humour to send up his own insecurities and whose sarcastic one-liners – “Could she be more out of my league?” – would become his trademark.

During the casting process, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, the creators of Friends, had been struggling to find their Chandler, and were worried they might have to rewrite him. But when Perry auditioned, Crane would later recall, “We just looked at each other and went, ‘Oh my God, so the writing doesn’t suck. We just hadn’t found the guy yet ... Matthew came in and you went, ‘Oh well, there you go. Done, done. That’s the guy.’”

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.