After several failed series, this boyishly cute, dark-haired comic performer (who is a master of double takes) achieved small screen stardom as the sardonic Chandler Bing on the hit NBC ensemble comedy "Friends" (1994- ). Big was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, but spent his formative years in Ottawa, Canada where his divorced mother served as press secretary to then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. An accomplished tennis player, he nearly pursued a career as a professional athlete, but he lost an important tournament in 1984 and decided to hang up his racquet for good. That same year, he moved to L.A. to live with his father, actor John Bennett Perry, and embark on an acting career.

Although Perry had a couple of TV guest appearances under his belt, he was "discovered" by director William Richert who spotted Perry at a restaurant while cutting classes. Richert offered the teenager a role opposite River Phoenix in "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon" (lensed in 1986; released 1988). By the time the film was released, Perry had already starred in the short-lived Fox sitcom "Second Chance" (1987) and its revamped, equally unsuccessful version "Boys Will Be Boys" (1988). In both, Perry began to hone his small screen persona of the flippant wisecracker. He further developed this personality as Valerie Bertinelli's brother on "Sydney" (CBS, 1990) and a freeloading reporter in the ABC vehicle "Home Free" (1993). Except for the occasional TV-movie that offered dramatic fare (i.e., playing Desi Arnaz Jr. in the 1990 ABC Patty Duke biopic "Call Me Anna"), the actor worked in comedy. Frustrated by his inability to land a steady TV gig, Perry and pal Andrew Hill Newman began writing scripts, selling a sitcom pilot "Maxwell's House" in 1993 (which was never made) and a feature "Imagining Emily".

Once he found fame as the emotionally immature Chandler on "Friends", Perry, like his sitcom co-stars, attempted to parlay their success to the big screen. And like many of his co-stars, he has yet to find a suitable script that would establish him as a movie star. "Fool Rush In" (1996) teamed Perry with Salma Hayekin a disappointing romantic comedy that was more notable for his real-life father playing his on screen dad than for its uneven style or chemistry between its stars. His other screen lead, to date, in "Almost Heroes" (1998), earned respectable reviews but the film was hampered by a terrible script and the untimely demise of co-star Chris Farley from a drug overdose. Ironically, not long after completing the film, Perry checked himself into a drug treatment center to kick an addiction to prescription painkillers. With a guaranteed stint on NBC through the year 2000, the actor continues to seek challenging film roles. He co-starred with fellow TV stars Neve Campbelland Dylan McDermott in the triangular romantic comedy "Three to Tango" (1999), playing an advertising copywriter assumed to be homosexual who is asked by his boss to escort the boss' mistress to events. In 2002, after a much publicized stint in a drug rehabilitation center that caused months of shooting delays, Perry completed his role as a process server in the dismal comedy "Serving Sara" (2002), a chemistry-impaired outing with Elizabeth Hurley before re-upping for the tenth and final season of "Friends".