- Matthew Perry said he "begged" the "Friends" producers to let him stop speaking like Chandler.
- Perry said that Chandler's odd cadence had become "so played out" over the course of the show.
Matthew Perry said that he pleaded with the producers of "Friends" so he could stop speaking in his character Chandler Bing's iconic cadence.
Perry reflected on his time playing the character on the sitcom, which ran on NBC for 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004, in his new memoir released on November 1, titled "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing."
Near the end of the book, the actor recalled the myriad memories that overtook him on January 23, 2004, when the cast wrapped filming of the series. Perry said that he walked around stage 24 at Warner Bros. in Burbank, California, where they filmed the show, and "sat in the lot for a moment and thought about the previous 10 years."
Perry said he reflected on how he got the role of Chandler, his time in rehab between seasons eight and nine, and how his character moved past his signature cadence on "Friends."
"I thought about how I'd had to beg the producers to let me no longer speak like Chandler for the final few seasons (not to mention getting rid of those sweater vests)," he 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."
In his memoir, Perry revealed the origin of Chandler's unique way of putting emphasis on unexpected words — which he called the "Murray-Perry Cadence."
The "17 Again" star said that he and his friends, two brothers named Chris and Brian Murray, developed that way of speaking in the third grade.
"I don't think it's an exaggeration to suggest that Chandler Bing transformed the way America spoke," Perry said.
"For the record: that transformation came directly from Matthew Perry, Chris Murray, and Brian Murray fucking around in Canada in the 1980s," he added. "Only I got rich off of it, though. Fortunately, Chris and Brian have never busted me for that and are still my dear, hilarious friends."