Friends is the gift that keeps on giving.
Over ten years since it was in production and first on TV people keep spotting new things about Friends they missed the first time around. Take the extra in the background, for example, who was spotted taking a sip from her drink and then chewing like you would do with food in your mouth, or the time Matt LeBlanc had to hide behind David Schwimmer to contain his laughter on set.
And now it turns out Chandler, played by Matthew Perry, almost broke character in one very important scene. Maggie Wheeler who played Janice has said that one time they were filming a scene together and he nearly burst out laughing.
She was speaking to Cosmopolitan when she explained that they were filming the scene for the third season, called The One With the Giant Poking Device, where Chandler finds out that Janice has been cheating him with her ex-husband again.
During the confrontation he nearly cracks. Maggie said, “Chandler discovers that I’ve been fooling around with my ex-husband and I’m breathing into a paper bag. I’m hyperventilating and we had rehearsed it many times, and every time he would just grab the bag gently and the air would just exit it.”
She adds, “The adrenalin was pumping and we were in the middle of the scene and he was like ‘do you love him?’ – yes – ‘do you love me?’ – yes – and he just grabbed the bag with more force than he had in any rehearsal and it popped. By the grace of God I was able to hide my face in the bag, but you can see if you look at it, he almost cracks up.”
Sure enough, if you watch it closely he does look like he’s ready to burst at the 1 minute 40 seconds mark.
