He spent a decade doing guest appearances on failed sitcoms like CHARLES IN CHARGE, GROWING PAINS, and SILVER SPOONS, before striking pay dirt on NBC’s hit series FRIENDS. Like his castmates, Perry has capitalized on his sudden fame in films like FOOLS RUSH IN, with Salma Hayek, and in the comedy ALMOST HEROES, with the late Chris Farley 1998.
The trappings of Friends success have provided a Porsche, a home in the Hollywood Hills, a nose job to soften his profile, and a brief fling with FRIENDS guest star Julia Roberts.
MyMovies: Can you tell me about the time you spent in Chicago?
Matthew Perry: You want me to tell you about the time in Chicago? We shot in Chicago for about a day. That was my time in Chicago.
MM: We heard you had foreign people yelling, “Perry! Perry!”
MP: Yeah, we had a little of that. That was actually the end of the shoot and they added these two days of scheduling. I’m not sure what bridge we were on but I actually fell asleep. But it was a scary image because I fell asleep with my feet on the railing of the bridge. You don’t want to wake up that way. The hours were long. I was in my little Matthew Perry chair, feet up on the railing and I fell asleep.
MM: And you were being assaulted by foreign girls?
MP: That’s just a blurry little memory.
MM: Chandler is sometimes thought to be gay, was this a continuation of that idea?
MP: There was a definite episode of FRIENDS first season that was one of my favorite episodes, where people dealt with the fact that everybody thought he was gay and that was fun. We ended up doing little jokes about that throughout the years, and I did see this as being a movie version of that in terms of my character. It’s just a funny idea.
MM: What are your thoughts on maybe alienating the gay community, maybe having gays turn out to picket the film?
MP: Of course a lot of gay people could meet that way. Certainly nobody felt offensive about that topic, we were very careful to make sure that nobody was offended. I can’t see gay people being offended. Almost everybody on my team, in terms of agents and managers, is gay, so I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now if I didn’t have them. We went through the script. The smartest character in the movie, most intelligent, most grounded, is a gay guy played by Oliver Platt in a very funny way. We went through the script with that in mind, and Chastity Bono actually came up for a while cause I guess she makes herself available on movie sets.
MM: What was that like?
MP: It was fine. There’s this very funny scene in the movie where I’m accepting the Gay Man of the Year Award and she was there. She had a couple of things to say about that. We had hired a big group of extras and she was like, I think you need to have this be a higher class of people at least from the front and in most of the shots. There were those kinds of things that she did. In terms of offending people, people are going to be offended if they’re going to be offended. Everything is going to be offended by something.
MM: Tuna-melt people could be offended.
MP: That restaurant in particular. That was one of my favorite scenes.
MM: That looked so gross, what you had to eat.
MP: I didn’t eat it. Those were other hands and another mouth. The simultaneous vomiting scene is one of my favorite things in the movie.
MM: See, that shows you’re a straight guy.
MP: There was no kiss after that scene. That led to that cool shot in the movie after that day, me running down the street, jumping up, instead of us kissing. But that’s an example of one of the cool things, and I’ve had fun talking about this today, Neve was so funny in that scene.
She’s so funny in this movie, that was one of the neatest realizations that everybody came to. She was the first one attached to this movie. I actually turned this movie down about four years ago because I didn’t think it was well written, I didn’t think it was smart, and then it came to me two years ago and I said to my manager, Look, I turned this down two years ago. We’re not that desperate, I can take the summer off. He said, Read it again, there’s been some changes. It got so much smarter and so much more of an adult comedy, and Neve was attached and that was interesting.
MM: You get to watch Neve in a tub.
MP: I get to watch Neve in a tub. That was supposed to go on for one day, but I kept screwing up my lines so they had to make it a three-day shoot.
MM: Can you compare this film to FOOLS RUSH IN?
MP: What I noticed in the playing of it was that this is the nicest guy that I’ve ever played. He’s a nice guy, he’s a goof ball, certainly, and there’s a lot of opportunity for slapstick and falling down, which I’m starting to learn is something that I really like to do. But FOOLS RUSH IN was kind of a slick, New York guy who was trying to do the right thing, and Chandler is a nice guy but will make fun of everybody else at the drop of a hat. Out of his own insecurity he’ll comment on others. This is just a really nice guy who gets caught in this ridiculous circumstance. I think they were smart in that he got in this situation where they were forced to pretend that they’re gay or he’d lose this huge job, or he’d lose this friendship with this woman he’s falling love with. Basically he’s a really nice guy who gets stuck in this ridiculous situation and it’s funny to watch and romantic.
MM: What’s the farthest you’ve ever gone for the sake of romance?
MP: I would say the funniest thing, which is also sad, is that for about seven years I was going on dates and just trying to impress people. So there’s not one specific story, it’s just about seven years of stupidity.
MM: What’s the biggest thing you ever tried to do?
MP: It was more just going to dinner and trying to impress women with my sense of humor or something like that, to the point where my head would explode. I’d end up in these relationships where we’re two months in and she thinks I’m funny, but I don’t even know her last name. You can’t keep it up, and then the first time you’re literally too tired to be a comedian, you run out of things. I think I’ve calmed down a lot in my life.
MM: Do you just not talk a lot on the first date?
MP: Yeah, I date mimes. Mostly, I just listen. If I’ve learned anything about relationships, or the beginning of a relationshis in my twenties, it is to step off this pedestal. I’m okay, I don’t need to give this exaggerated version of myself to impress people. Ask them about themselves and listen, find out if you really like the person.
MM: It must be very hard for you to date, living in the spotlight the way you do.
MP: I’m actually seeing this very nice girl right now and I firmly believe she’s into me and not all that stuff. Her name is Renee Ashton, we met through the personals. I put in, “FRIENDS star, THREE TO TANGO star, nice house, please help.” I got a couple of thousand letters, nice screening process. We met at a restaurant.
MM: You see this girl in a restaurant, do you go up to her?
MP: It’s a goofy little story, we actually met at a Kings game four years ago. She was actually with a person I went to high school with, so I started talking to this person. And I was flirting with this cute girl and I didn’t have the courage to ask her out, so I left. I was in the parking lot of the Forum, and that’s a difficult place to be. I thought to myself, This is stupid. I should go in and ask this girl out, which I did do, but I couldn’t find her. Four years later I was at a restaurant and there she was. She came up to me and said, Y’know we’ve met. I said, Yes, you were in a black coat, I wanted to ask you out then and I don’t want to make the same mistake twice, so let’s go out. And it’s been good, it’s been about nine months.
MM: Is Warner Brothers listening to the contract negotiations among the cast of FRIENDS?
MP: That’s not really happening. We’re not really talking about it, we’re just having a good time right now.
MM: Would you like to see Chandler and Monica moved in together?
MP: The key to sitcom success is miserable people. If you see a happy couple, it’s just gone. When Sam and Diane got together on CHEERS, MOONLIGHTING, all that stuff. So we have taken that chance on the FRIEND show, but everyone is very aware of that. So there’s gonna be a lot of fighting. It’s such a cool couple, such a neat couple to watch cause they’re both so neurotic.
MM: Could you see him dumping her?
MP: No, and I don’t think that’s going to come on. The neat thing about it is the two most neurotic people on the show trying to have a relationship. As soon as it becomes lovey-dovey it will change because I will make it change and all the producers are very aware of that.
MM: How important are movies to Matthew Perry?
MP: I love the medium of sitcoms, it’s like doing a one-act play every week, but I also love making movies and I’m really lucky that FRIENDS has allowed all these doors to open. Making THREE TO TANGO and watching THREE TO TANGO, I go, Wow, this movie works as entertainment, it’s fun to watch, I’m proud of my performance in it, I’m proud of the people that got up every day and did the movie. This Bruce Willis one was so much fun to do.
MM: What was it like playing a dentist?
MP: Remember the movie THE IN-LAWS? I’m not going to say that it is like that movie, be cause I think that’s one of the funniest movies of all time, but it certainly aspires to be that movie. It’s a similar story where I play a dorky dentist in the suburbs of Montreal. Right next door to me moves in the biggest hitman in the world played by Bruce Willis. I’m scared of Bruce throughout the entire of movie, and for the first three weeks of working with him.
MM: Whose teeth did you work on?
MP: I had to work on a bunch of people’s teeth, I had to work on a couple of dead people’s teeth. The cast in that movie is just ridiculous, Kevin Pollock, Harland Williams, Bruce Willis, Amanda Peete, Natasha Henstridge, Roseanna Arquette. Actually, the truth of the matter is Bruce was very scared to work with me. But he calmed down.
MM: Was he alive or dead in this movie?
MP: Bruce was alive in this movie. What a great guy.
MM: Did you get over your fear of him after three weeks?
MP: It took a little while. When he first called me, the message he left on the machine said, Hey Matthew, it’s Bruce Willis. Call me back or I’ll burn your house down. It was funny because I was pacing all around my house, talking to him. By the end we became really tight, we’re still talking and having a really nice time. I learned a lot from him. He’s a big movie star, and not in a bad way, but he’s confident. Working on THREE TO TANGO, I was kind of nervous. You got a movie on your shoulders and I hope this working. But luckily the chemistry worked in the movie and everybody got along really well. You take such a gamble when you do these things, and Damon is a first time director.
MM: Did you have a script doctor come in and work on some of your lines?
MP: There actually was someone who came in and dramatically punched it up. The big fight scene that we have in the movie, out in the street, which is one of my favorite scenes in the film, somebody came in and fixed that. There was a comedy punch-up of the movie while we were up there. But during the three-week rehearsal period, what that really was was Dylan, Oliver, Neve, myself, Damon and the writer re-writing.
A couple times Neve and I took passes on scenes. That was the neat thing about finding out that Neve was funny. Who knew? She cries on PARTY OF FIVE all the time. But she was really, really funny, and Oliver was really funny. A lot of the lines I said in the movie I thought of during that rehearsal period. That’s just lucky, you either get a director who�s okay with that or not. I’ve been lucky enough to have that be.
MM: Being the ranked tennis player you are, it seems odd no one�s come to you with a tennis script.
MP: Tennis movies in general have not done too well. If something comes along, I am an athlete. Kevin Costner has had some success, not doing sports films, but doing that would be a lot of fun. I got out of it because I got busy with all these things. Luckily there’s a lot going on. I’d need about a month. I just started, three days ago, working out with this tennis coach. In about a month, I be back to being a really good tennis player.
MM: Have you ever played against your FRIENDS cast-mates?
MP: I would beat them. Maybe not Courteney, she’s been playing a lot. But it takes about a good month or two. At the age of seven, I would beat me now. That’s what’s frustrating about it, I was a pretty punky kid.
MM: Last time we talked to you you were way too skinny. Now you’re looking better.
MP: That whole experience and getting through it, I’m okay to talk about it now. I wanted to be quiet about it for awhile. That experience, I learned so much in the healing process that I became a lot stronger guy by realizing I could get through it. It’s a very, very difficult thing to get through. The reason I don’t talk about it in the press is cause I like to be funny at these things. There’s really nothing funny to say about that. You get out of that place, realize you’re no longer there and you went through it. It’s like going into a dark room. I don’t want to go into that dark room, but you go in and you open the door and say, Hey look at this, look at what I was able to do. Throw anything at me, I’ll be able to get through it now.
Loading ...