Matthew Perry, the actor who rose to fame for his role in the NBC comedy series “Friends” tragically passed away on Saturday, October 28, 2023, at the age of 54.
Perry had written in his 2022 memoir that he was in a tiny Los Angeles apartment reading about actor Charlie Sheen in the newspaper three weeks before he auditioned for the role of Chandler Bing for the comedy series “Friends”.
He had read about Sheen being in trouble again for something to which Perry’s thought was, “Why does he care – he’s famous”. In his memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing” Perry mentioned getting on his knees, closing his eyes tightly and praying. He wrote, “I had never done this before”. His prayer was simple and he simply asked “God, you can do whatever you want to me. Just please make me famous”.
It was three weeks later that Perry was casted in ‘Friends’. He went on to say that of course, “God has done his duty; but the Almighty, being the Almighty, had also remembered to answer the first portion of that plea.”
In 1994 Perry was scrambling for work after he was told that there was “no money” by his “terrible” manager. Perry recalled during a 2015 appearance on “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, telling his agent that he needed to get Perry any job that he could.
This was in the year that ‘Friends’ was shot, but Perry was unavailable because he had taken a job on a pilot called ‘LAX 2194’ that was about baggage handlers at L.A. Airport in the year 2194. He said that a script came along for a show which was then called “Friends Like Us”.
Perry said that he was losing his mind because there was this part that he felt was perfect for him and was making him go crazy that he could not go for it because of the baggage handlers show.
To his luck, the TV executives who saw “LAX 2194” thought it was horrible and he was freed up to pursue the role of Chandler, which later made him famous.
Perry was often found saying that “Friends” changed his life and gave him lifelong friends and a bond with co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.
In May 2021, when Perry and his co-stars reunited for HBO Max’s “Friends: The Reunion” special, he got emotional talking about it.
He explained the bond by saying, “The simplest way I can put it is this: if we happened to run into each other at a party or other social event after the play, that was it. That brought the evening to a close. All you did was spend the entire evening sitting with the person.”
As Perry spoke, Courtney Cox teared up.
He said, “You apologised to the people you were with, but they had to understand that you had met someone special and that you were going to spend the rest of the night talking to that person.” “And that is how it transpired.”