Matthew Perry NEARLY played an alien baggage handler instead of being in Friends

It’s 1994 at a virtually disused theatre in New York. Richard Gere steps up on stage. “That could BE any more-?” he stutters to a nearly empty auditorium. “NEXT!” comes the shouted response from the stalls. Brian Blessed strides on. He clears his throat. “OHHH! MYYY! GAAAAAAD!” he bellows. “NEXT!” The producers of the show that will eventually become Friends shake their heads at each other and sigh. “It’s hopeless,” one of them says. “If only Matthew Perry had been free. I had such high hopes for this project. OK, shut it down, people. It’s over.”

Yep, that could have the bleak future of the human race had Matthew Perry actually skipped his audition for the role of Chandler Bing like he’d planned.

Speaking to Seth Meyers on last night’s Late Night show, Matthew explained the sitch.

At the time the Friends auditions came about, he was already committed to a Fox show called LAX 2194, which even the network itself confirmed as “the worst thing we’ve ever seen in our lives”, Matthew joked.

It was apparently about “baggage handlers at the [Los Angeles] airport in the year 2194”, he went on.

“I was wearing a futuristic shirt, and little people played the aliens. I had to sort out the aliens’ luggage. That was basically the show.”

Uh, incredible???

But when the Friends script landed in front of him, Matthew knew he had to audition – but there were complications with his contract at Fox.

Luckily, the network eventually agreed to allow the actor to try out “for your little show called Friends Like Us”.

Amazing. A massive heat goodie bag and the promise of our first-born child to whoever manages to unearth the pilot for LAX 2194.