Three years after his death, the story of how Matthew Perry won the part that defined him still reads like a sitcom plot. It has a doomed pilot, a friend’s bad career call, and a prayer.
In 1994, Matthew Perry was desperate for work. He later recalled that his terrible manager had told him he had no money, so he took a job on a pilot called LAX 2194, a show about airport baggage handlers in the distant future. That meant, as he put it, he was off the market just as a script called Friends Like Us began going around.
He read it and was floored. As per Gulf News, he told Seth Meyers in 2015 that it was “hilarious and great.” But the show’s creators had a rule against casting actors in what the industry calls “second position.” That’s when someone already working on one pilot gets cast in another, on the assumption the first will be canceled. They didn’t want to take that gamble.
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Why Craig Bierko Turned Down Friends & Saved Perry’s Life
Meanwhile, finding a Chandler was proving harder than anyone expected. Former NBC president Warren Littlefield said, “We thought Chandler was going to be a quick, easy role to cast,” and it wasn’t. Co-creator Marta Kauffman said the closest candidate was Craig Bierko. Bierko was a good friend of Perry’s, and Perry had even coached him …read more
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