Recent weeks have been especially tough for Friends’ former cast and crew members, not to mention the fandom at large, due to the unforeseen and sudden death of co-star Matthew Perry, who accidentally drowned at age 54. Those with Max subscriptions have been streaming episodes in memory of the comedic actor, and it turns out one of the NBC sitcom’s most memorable two-episode arcs nearly featured a total deal-breaking moment involving Chandler cheating on Monica, which I have to assume would have caused fans to riot.
This unexpectedly golden morsel of Friends trivia comes from Lisa Cash, an actress who appeared in a guest-starring capacity in the Season 5 episode “The One in Vegas: Part 1.” While viewers would presumably recognize her as the flight attendant during Ross and Rachel’s flight scenes, she was originally going to play a hotel employee who could have potentially been the “copy girl” of Monica and Chandler’s relationship. Here’s how Cash put it to TMZ:
The scene was Chandler and Monica were arguing in Vegas about Monica having lunch with Richard. And initially in our script, Chandler goes up to the hotel room, orders room service, and I bring it up as a hotel worker. And we end up talking and laughing and connecting, and Chandler ends up cheating on Monica with my character.
Considering all the booze-fueled wackiness and more that went on during the two-part Vegas excursion — “This hand is your hand. This hand is my hand.” — it wouldn’t have been so out of place for Friends to drop a bombshell relationship moment like that on Chandler and Monica, especially as a way to balance the unexpected togetherness of Ross and Rachel’s drunken, ink-faced nuptials. And it would have made enough sense in the moment for Matthew Perry’s character to make such a dunderheaded decision as a reaction to his innate discomfort over Courteney Cox’s Monica having secret conversations with Tom Selleck’s Richard.
But it was Perry himself who apparently stepped up behind the scenes and voiced his concern about his character engaging in such debaucherous behavior, which Lisa Cash discovered the day before shooting for the episode was set to commence. She continued:
We had rehearsed it and everything. And then the day before we were shooting with a live audience, I was told that [Matthew] went to the writers and said the audience will never forgive him for cheating on Monica. Which…he was probably right. That would have changed, possibly, the course of the show and of his character.
Though I know there are fans who disliked Chandler and Monica’s courtship and probably would have cheered on any amount of infidelity that would lead to a break-up, I’m thankful that storyline didn’t come to life, especially at that middle point in the show's run. For one, it would have been a little too close to Ross and Rachel's "on a break" debate, even with the minor differences. And for another, it might have completely thrown the character dynamics off throughout Season 6 and possibly beyond to have Chandler and Monica at odds, presumably with side-romances being attempted in the meantime.
Matthew Perry, who arguably knew Chandler Bing better than anyone else, clearly didn't want Friends' creative team to drive this kind of wedge between the characters, and it's awesome that his opinions were heard, respected, and acted upon. And I can only imagine that Lisa Cash avoided years of hate mail from fans who would have been angry at her character for being the wedge that could have split Chandler and Monica up.
If only there was a Sliding Doors scenario that allowed fans to see where Friends would have gone had the cheating sitch played out in full. Alas, we'll have to make do with the ten largely wonderful seasons that were produced.
