December 22nd 2023.
Minnie Driver has spoken about her close friend and former colleague Matthew Perry's inner struggle while starring on the hit US sitcom Friends. Driver and Perry became close after starring in a production of Sexual Perversity in Chicago in London in 2003, and Driver recalled Perry's frustration at being unable to break away from being known as Chandler Bing.
“That summer, he was also loving exploring this world outside Friends, very deliberately living and working as an actor,” Driver said. “And Matthew, we mustn’t forget, was a very good actor. I recently looked at the reviews for our play – and his were all really good, apart from one. I remember his reaction to it, ‘Some people only want Chandler, and I don’t know that I’m allowed to be anything other than that’.”
Driver said that while Perry's role as Chandler Bing was iconic and beloved, there was so much more to him than that. “See the dramatic aspects he brings out in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and the Scott Silveri sitcom Go On, exploring talents that were so much deeper and darker,” she said. “But he knew that Friends was never going to let him go. It was a pretty tight yoke.”
The death of Perry in October of last year was confirmed as accidental, with contributing factors including opioid use disorder. Driver said that part of Perry's "inner struggle" was being so closely identified with a role he was beloved for. “I also think if you struggle with addiction and you have this extraordinary, rarefied life where people love you so completely, it’s always difficult to come to terms with the possibility of your fallibility,” Driver said.
Driver found it "unbearable" to read about Perry's struggles with addiction, which he wrote about candidly in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. “Since Matthew wrote his beautiful book, everybody knows about his struggles with addiction,” she said. “I found it incredibly hard to read and had to put it down and pick it up again – it felt unbearable, how much he suffered.”
Driver went on to share that the last time they met up was during Perry's book tour last year, during which he reassured her that sharing his experience had helped. “It was such a relief hearing him say that by putting all that tough stuff out there, he’d exorcised it in a way,” she said. “I’m incredibly grateful that he got to have the experience of how much people loved that book, and loved him, outside of Friends. Ultimately, it seemed like a positive thing.”
George Clooney also recently spoke about Perry's struggles, saying he didn't find joy, happiness or peace on the sitcom. “He was a kid and all he would say to us, I mean me, Richard Kind and Grant Heslov, was, I just want to get on a sitcom, man. I just want to get on a regular sitcom and I would be the happiest man on earth,” Clooney said. “And he got on probably one of the best ever. He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace.”
The legacy of Perry's life and death will continue to be remembered, and Friends is available to stream on Netflix.
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