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.
