In the 1999 Friends two-parter “The One in Vegas,” the gang flies to Las Vegas to visit Joey, who’s in town to shoot a movie. It also happens to be Monica and Chandler’s anniversary, and the two decide to get married while on vacation. That’s until Ross and Rachel drunkenly beat them to it and convince them it might not be a good idea to rush into marriage. However, when the episode was originally conceived, things were a little different, and it took Matthew Perry stepping in behind the scenes to secure some significant changes.
Shortly after Perry’s death in 2023, Friends guest star Lisa Cash told TMZ that she was supposed to play a hotel worker in “The One in Vegas” who hits it off with Chandler. After Monica and Chandler get into an argument over Monica having lunch with another man (played by Tom Selleck), the plan, believe it or not, was to have Chandler cheat on Monica with Cash’s character.
All of this was apparently rehearsed and seemed set in stone until the day before they were scheduled to shoot. That’s when Cash says she learned that Perry had gone to the writers and told them the audience would never forgive him if they went through with the cheating story.
Matthew Perry Reportedly Stopped Friends From Making Chandler Cheat on Monica
“That would have changed possibly the course of the show and of his character,” Cash admitted. Though she enjoyed rehearsing with Perry, she said it was a good move to switch it up as they did. And thankfully for Cash, she didn’t completely get cut out of the episode as a result, but she didn’t appear in any scenes with Perry in the final version. Instead, she was recast as a flight attendant who only interacts with Ross and Rachel on the plane.
While she remains grateful for the opportunity, Cash went on to say, “The original scene was guest starring with Matthew Perry and everything. It could’ve been kind of a game-changer.” “I was new to the industry, and it could have been really intimidating for me—like, Season 5 of Friends,” she recalled of her brief time working with Perry. “But I just felt so comfortable, and he was really likable and welcoming and just made me feel at ease. And I had fun, you know? It was just really fun doing the scene with him.”
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