Yahoo Finance Kathleen Turner wouldn't play Chandler's dad on 'Friends' today
While Kathleen Turner was keen to play a drag queen during her stint as Chandler Bing's dad on Friends, the actress has said it wouldn’t be a part she’d take on today.
For a total of three episodes the husky-voiced star played Helena Handbasket on the programme, a Las Vegas performer who had a difficult relationship with Chandler, played by Matthew Perry.
Speaking on Watch What Happens Live, Turner, 65, said: “Of course I wouldn’t do it now because there would be real people able to do it."
Turner also explained that she took the role because it was something she hadn’t done before.
The Romancing the Stone star shared: "At the time, one of the co-creators of Friends, we were doing a show based on Tallulah Bankhead, and he came up to see the show in San Francisco and came backstage and said 'you have to play Chandler's dad' and I thought, 'okay, a woman playing a man playing a woman. I haven’t done that'. So I said ‘yes’.”
Read more: Paul Rudd says his time on Friends ‘was a surreal blur'
While the character's identity was not clearly defined throughout the show and was largely referred to with male pronouns, co-creator Marta Kauffman has confirmed that Helena was a transgender woman.
Kauffman has also said the storyline would be different today as she discussed with USA Today what modern changes would be made to the comedy.
She said: "I think we didn’t have the knowledge about transgender people back then, so I’m not sure if we used the appropriate terms.
"I don’t know if I would have known those terms back then. I think that’s the biggest one."
Turner's words come as a Friends reunion is reportedly underway with the main six cast members.
Creators Kauffman and David Crane and the main six cast members are allegedly "in talks" for an “unscripted” TV special.
