While working on a play in London, the Pretty in Pink star received a phone call at 3 a.m. asking if he’d like to try out for an upcoming sitcom.
“I had to audition the next morning with the casting director who was in the U.K.,” Cryer explained to James Corden in 2015. “But she woke me up at 3, so I had to work on that scene from that time to about 10 a.m.”
He continued, “I went in and I did my best and she packaged up the tape of me doing my best Chandler Bing, sent it to Los Angeles and it got stuck at customs.”
So, producers didn’t get to see Cryer’s audition before casting Perry. The ultimate what if moment, though, Cryer has taken it in stride. Though we’d guess that has a little something to do with Two and a Half Men, the CBS comedy that would earn him an Emmy in 2012.
As he told Corden, “It’s OK, it’s all for the best.”