Even though his current movie “Serving Sara” has proved to be a box-office disappointment — it grossed only $5.8 million in its opening weekend — this week’s PEOPLE cover boy Matthew Perry, 33, is looking on the brighter side of things. “Whether it’s successful or not doesn’t matter,” he tells the magazine. “It’s the movie in which my life got better.” It was a life that needed turning around, the “Friends” star admits. In the interview, Perry discusses his four-year struggle with drug and alcohol abuse. “I’ve been through a very dark time,” he says, revealing that he got hooked on the painkiller Vicodin after a Jet Ski accident and was downing “an insane number of pills” (some 20 to 30 daily) and drinking “probably a quart of vodka a day.” Perry, who says he is clean now, tells PEOPLE that he hit a wall on Feb. 23, 2001, when he called his parents from a Dallas hotel room and asked for help. He flew to Los Angeles, where his parents drove him to a rehabilitation center. He stayed in treatment for two and a half months. “I learned that a happy life is possible without alcohol or drugs,” he says, admitting outright that there’s “no gray area. I’m an alcoholic.”

Whole New Man

After public battles with alcohol and pills, Matthew Perry, sober and grateful, celebrates his good fortune.

Matthew Perry likes to win. Very, very much. Which is why anyone who picks up a tennis racket opposite the Friends star could be in for a serious whuppin’. Behind the net on a recent Saturday afternoon at an L.A. club, the tanned, trim actor — once the No. 2-ranked junior tennis player in his hometown of Ottawa — makes John McEnroe look like a lovable softie. “Are you thirsty?” he asks his exhausted opponent, whom he handily beats six games to love. “Yes? Good. We’ll get a drink later.” And if dehydration sets in sooner? Replies Perry with a sly grin: “That’s a forfeit, my friend.”

Given Perry’s fierce forehand and blistering serve — honed by daily workouts with a professional coach — forfeiting might not be such a bad idea. “Sweating, running for shots, this is a world I love to be in,” says the 33-year-old star, who proved his on-court skills by returning a 107 mph serve from tennis great Andre Agassi in a recent charity match. “You can talk about walking down red carpets, flying on private planes and stuff like that,” says Perry. “But to return Agassi’s serve when he’s trying to ace you — and to win the point — it doesn’t get better.”

And as Perry knows too well, it can get far worse. “I’ve been through a very dark time,” he says of his four-year struggle with drug and alcohol abuse, including two stints in rehab in 1997 and 2001 and a 2000 hospitalization for alcohol-related pancreatitis. Hooked on the painkiller Vicodin, Perry says early on he was downing an “insane number of pills” — between 20 and 30 daily — and later drinking “probably a quart of vodka a day.” Combined with his ‘00 car crash and fluctuating weight, he was clearly a Friend in need. “It was terrifying,” says Friends executive producer Marta Kauffman, “watching someone you care about in so much pain.”

That was before a “moment of clarity” in February 2001 — followed by an emotional phone call to his parents asking for help — finally prompted him to confront his problems head-on. That required resolve, humility and a kind of surrender. There’s “no gray area,” he says. “I’m an alcoholic.” Now, with his first-ever Emmy nomination, a new feature film (Serving Sara) and a $24 million payday for Friends’ ninth — and likely final — season, Perry says he is clean, sober and able to savor his success. “It all starts from a spiritual connection with something that’s bigger than you,” he says. “That’s where the stuff of life is. As for the rest of it, I’m lucky to have a cool car and plenty of money. But if you don’t have happiness inside, and you don’t think of others first, you’ll be lonely and miserable in a big house.”

Such life affirmations are just the sort of things that the wisecracking Perry would have once mocked. “I used to call people who said this sort of stuff ‘How are you?’ people,” he explains. “They’d ask, ‘How are you?’ I’d say, ‘Good.’ And they’d say, ‘No, how are you?’I hated that. But you know what? I’ve become a ‘How are you?’ person.”
Even Serving Sara’s disappointing performance — it grossed just $5.8 million in its opening weekend — has Perry looking on the bright side. “Whether it’s successful or not doesn’t matter,”he says. “It’s the movie in which my life got better.”

From the outside, Perry’s life has always seemed pretty charmed. There is, for example, his busy bachelorhood. After his first high-profile fling in ‘96 (a gal named Julia, now Mrs. Danny Moder), Perry has been linked to a string of Hollywood beauties, including — this summer alone — actress Heather Graham, 32; George Clooney’s ex Krista Allen, 30; and Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham, 35. “I’m single and enjoying myself,” he says. “I’ve dated a few people over the summer. Some mentioned in magazines I’ve never met. Some I was just having coffee with.”

One who is more than just a coffee mate is tennis ace Jennifer Capriati, 26, whom Perry cheered on at the French Open in June.” It’s a great friendship based on mutual respect,” says Perry, downplaying reports of a romance. As for his rumored fling with Sara costar Elizabeth Hurley, “We had a nice chemistry on the set, but it was just a work relationship,” he says.

Shrugging off romance rumors is one thing. But he doesn’t laugh at the mention of a recent tabloid story that he is drinking again. “Howard Stern read it on his show as if it was fact,” says Perry. “That really got me angry. By discussing my problems, I think I’m helping people struggling with this disease. But hearing a false report that I can’t make it, well, maybe it makes it harder for them.” Perry acknowledges that his own sobriety is an ongoing challenge. “You don’t recover from what I went through overnight,” he says. “It’s a day-to-day process.”

Most days, that means waking up at his four-bedroom hilltop home “around 7 or 8. I watch the Today show and make coffee, then I go play tennis and go to work” — in one of his two BMWs (“a convertible for when it doesn’t bother me that everyone’s staring” and an X5 “for when I want to hide”). In his CD player? Bruce Springsteen’s latest, along with melancholy jazz singer Norah Jones. “I still have that dorky taste in music where if you’re a woman in emotional distress and write a song about it, I’ll play the song over and over,” he says. “If you’re a lesbian, I’ll buy it twice.”
After his summer hiatus from Friends, returning to Stage 24 at Warner Bros. Studios on Aug. 13 — along with costars Matt LeBlanc, 35, David Schwimmer, 35, Jennifer Aniston, 33, Courteney Cox Arquette, 38, and Lisa Kudrow, 39 — “was like going back to school,” says Perry. “You show up. Tell stories about your summer. The first week we were a little rusty. There was a lot of laughing and going, ‘Oh my God, have we forgotten how to do this?’ ” he says. “But three days in, we were back on track.”

Getting his own life on track was considerably harder. The only child of John Bennett Perry, an actor best known for the Old Spice commercials in the 1970s, and mom Suzanne Morrison, a former press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (now divorced, both have since remarried), Perry displayed a competitive streak — and a love of tennis — early on, rising in the junior rankings in Ottawa until relocating to L.A. with his father in ‘84. There, after turning to acting, he burned through a series of failed TV shows before landing Friends in ‘94. “All the superficial things about (fame) came true,” he says of the show’s success. “I was naive enough to think it would fulfill all aspects of my life.”

Perry traces his addiction troubles to 1997, when he developed a dependency on Vicodin following a Jet Ski accident. “It wasn’t my intention to have a problem with it,” he says. “But from the start I liked how it made me feel, and I wanted to get more.” As his addiction escalated, “I was out of control and very unhealthy,” says Perry, who lost around 20lbs. from his 6-ft. frame. “I returned to my original birth weight,” he jokes.

Seeking treatment, he spent 28 days at the Hazelden rehab center in Minnesota. “I was able to stay sober for a brief period,” he says. “But I didn’t really get it.” Off the wagon by May 2000, Perry spent two weeks in L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he underwent treatment for pancreatitis, a potentially deadly inflammation of the pancreas that can be caused by alcohol abuse. “Unfortunately,” says Perry, “that still wasn’t enough to get me to quit drinking.” To make matters worse, Perry crashed his Porsche into an unoccupied house on the day of his hospital release. Although he was uninjured — and no alcohol or drugs were found in his system at the time of the accident — the incident reinforced his reputation as a troubled star. “I tried to talk to him,” says costar LeBlanc. “There wasn’t a response. It’s such a personal struggle; they need to bottom out on their own.”

An overstretched Perry would do just that by February 2001, when he commuted weekly between the Friends set in L.A. and the Sara shoot in Dallas. By then he was downing vodka by the quart. “Never when working,” he says. “But the hangover is brutal. I was sleepy and shaking at work.” Although those close to him offered support, “I wasn’t ready to hear it,” he says. “You can’t tell anyone to get sober. It has to come from you.”

For Perry, that realization finally arrived on Feb. 23, 2001. “I can’t describe it, because bigger things were taking place that I can’t put into words,” he says of the moment he decided to phone his parents from his Dallas hotel room and ask for help. “I was in fear of losing my life,” he says. “There’s a moment of clarity where you have to prioritize your life. I listened to it.”

With 13 days of shooting left on Sara and Friends still in production, Perry boarded a jet to L.A., where his parents drove him to an undisclosed rehab center. “It was scary. I didn’t want to die,” he says. “But I’m grateful for how bad it got. It only made me more adamant about trying to get better.” By the end of his 2 1/2 months in treatment, “I learned that a happy life is possible without alcohol or drugs.”

These days Perry seems to be proving that point with gusto. When he started on Friends, spending $2,500 on a couch seemed like a splurge. Today he has the BMWs, the $1 million-per-episode paychecks (“I don’t carry the whole million in my wallet,” he notes) and a new home movie theater. “Every day,” he says, “I wake up feeling like Tom Hanks in Big.”

The Emmy nod is another dream come true. In the past he would tune in to the nomination announcements, but when “I didn’t hear my name I had kind of a bad morning,” he says. “This time I didn’t think about it.” Well, not at first anyway. After a round of phone calls, “I got in the shower and thought, ‘I’d really like to win this thing,’ ” he recalls. “As soon as I said that I realized I’d given myself, oh, about 10 minutes to enjoy it before I went straight to the win.”

If his competitive streak is still going strong, Perry says his approach to dating is mellowing. “There was a period in my life where if someone was just right for me, I’d make up some reason to blow it,” he says. “I don’t have that instinct anymore. I’m ready for something special.” Adds pal Amanda Peet, his costar in 2000’s The Whole Nine Yards: “He’s a good listener. Especially now, with the courage he has had to get sober, he’s become even more accessible.” Perry’s ideal match? “Someone who’s happy. Someone who’s enjoying the day-to-day process of their life,” he says. “Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping. That’s the girl for me.”

Careerwise, Perry is set to shoot The Whole Nine Yards 2 in October. Like his Friends colleagues, Perry has struggled to establish himself on the big screen with flops like ’97’s Fools Rush In and ’99’s Three to Tango. Yet despite his shaky track record, “I didn’t hesitate to go into business with him,” says Paramount chairman Sherry Lansing, whose studio is distributing Sara. “He doesn’t have an entourage or an attitude. You like him instantly.”

Friends fans share the sentiment. “I’m pretty sure this is the last year,” he says of the show. “It’s like the old joke, ‘How do you make God laugh? Make a plan,’ ” he says. “But we’re looking at this as the final year.” The end, he admits, “will be overwhelmingly emotional. I can’t think about it.”

What he can think about, at last, is a sunny future. How does he see himself at 40? “I hope celebrating peace in my life,” he says. “Eight years of sobriety, peace and happiness as I sit with my wife and kids watching the new NBC show: Geriatric Friends.”

Interview With Matthew Perry

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight: We’ve all got a friend, and he’s Matthew Perry. Makes a million bucks per episode of “Friends,” but he’s talented, too. And the highs and lows of fame and fortune, battles with prescription drug and alcohol abuse, tabloid target, and opening in a great new film coming tomorrow.
How does he deal with all this while everybody watches? Matthew Perry is here.

We’ll take your calls next on LARRY KING LIVE.

It’s great to welcome him back to LARRY KING LIVE. Last time he was here with the whole cast, tonight he’s solo. He’s now also a major movie star, he wasn’t then.

He stars in “Serving Sara,” which opens tomorrow, co-starring with Elizabeth Hurley. I saw it this morning, very, very funny.

MATTHEW PERRY, ACTOR: Thank you.

KING: Very well done.

PERRY: Thanks.

KING: You’re only going to do comedies?

PERRY: Well, for right now, I’ve a couple comedies coming up, but hopefully a drama next summer, so…

KING: And a follow up to “The Whole Nine Yards”?

PERRY: Yes. We’re going to do — and you said you’re a fan of that movie, I’m so happy about that.

Yes, we’re going to start that in a couple of months, and Bruce and I, and Kevin Pollack and Amanda Peet and Natasha Henstridge and everybody…

KING: The whole group?

PERRY: Yes. Yes.

KING: And even Kevin Pollack, who gets killed in the other one. Only in movies, right?

PERRY: Even the dead once are back.

KING: Did you like that right away, “The Whole Ten Yards,” I mean, just reading the script?

PERRY: Did you just say the name — the thing…

KING: “The Whole Nine Yards.” I said ten yards.

PERRY: I think that’s just you and I. I think that’s just the problem between you and I.

KING: We run into each other a lot in elevators.

PERRY: Yes.

“The Whole Nine Yards” I liked right away. It was kind of a dark comedy at first. And just the idea of being in a movie with Bruce Willis was pretty exciting.

And we did that movie kind of the same way we do “Friends,” which is, we come from a great script, and it starts with a great script and then every day that we’re shooting we just try to improve on it and kind of improv a little bit and try to make it better.

KING: Willis said you did a lot of that in that movie.

PERRY: Yes, it was fun. And he did too. I mean…

KING: And a lot of your takes were improv, right? A lot of your falls?

PERRY: Yes. There was a scene in that where I have to run across a lawn and slam into a glass door and…

KING: And you did.

PERRY: We kind of did that because the door was there.

KING: Are you comfortable with physical comedy?

PERRY: Yes, I think so. I never really thought of myself as a physical comedian. But when I was a kid I used to, you know, pretend to trip over things to make girls laugh in school and stuff like that. So I kind of learned how to fall without hurting yourself.

KING: We’ve got lots to talk about, Matthew. It’s great to you have here, and we appreciate your coming forward to talk about a lot of things.

But tell me first about “Serving Sara,” how you go this, how you chose to take it.

PERRY: Well, “Serving Sara” is a movie that’s coming out tomorrow starring myself and Elizabeth Hurley. And I originally got the script, and one of the things that was intriguing about it for me, it was a darker guy than I’ve played in the past. You know, it’s a really edgy guy I play. A guy named Joe Tyler, who’s a process server; he serves subpoenas for a living.

And I met with a couple of those guys, and they’re pretty dark fellows.

KING: It’s a weird job.

PERRY: It’s a very strange job.

KING: You’ve got to place it in the hand.

PERRY: Yes, all they have to do is they have to find you and then you have to touch this piece of paper, and then you’re served and they can go home.

KING: And they took pictures in this too. I didn’t see…

PERRY: Yes, sometimes you have to have further documentation.

KING: One of the great opening scenes ever.

PERRY: Oh, thanks.

KING: In the club, you with the fake tuxedo and the…

PERRY: yes, that was so much fun.

KING: … and those guys.

PERRY: A little James Bondian kind of…

KING: How did you like working with Elizabeth Hurley?

PERRY: It was great. Elizabeth is — you know, it’s pretty well documented that she’s one of the most beautiful women in the world. And, you know, when people mentioned her name for the part, I was like, OK, but it’s a big, broad comedy we’ve got going here, so hopefully she’s be funny.

And we met with her, and she’s got this great comedic timing. It’s annoying to most of the women in the world when I say this, but she’s beautiful and smart and also really funny.

KING: She’s got everything, in other words.

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Is timing harder doing a movie?

PERRY: Well, the only thing that makes it a little bit harder is you don’t get the immediate gratification of a laugh. So when we’re doing “Friends,” you know, it’s kind of like putting on a different one-act play every week.

KING: But you hear the laugh.

PERRY: Yes, you make the laugh, and there’s the sound. And if you don’t hear the laugh, a group of writers panic and rush off to you and you rewrite it right there.

So you have to trust, you know, more of the creative team when you’re doing a movie because I’ll say a joke and I’m not going to hear whether it gets a laugh for eight months in a dark room.

You know, so you put your trust in the director and the producers.

KING: Well, I will tell the audience, you’re going to enjoy “Serving Sara.” I think it’s going to have a big weekend too.

PERRY: Oh, thank you.

PERRY: And — but it’s very, very funny, and it holds its pace right through, which I like. Every minor character is drawn well, from guys with two-minute scenes.

PERRY: That guy Cedric the Entertainer is pretty funny, the guy who plays my boss. He steals every scene he’s in, so I’m never going to be in another movie with…

KING: The guy is wild.

PERRY: Yes.

KING: He’s got his own TV show, right?

PERRY: He does. And he deserves it. He’s a really funny guy.

KING: Let’s talk about a lot — first, is this definitely “Friends” last — is that it, good-bye “Friends”?

PERRY: Well yes, I think so.

KING: How come Mr. Zucker says maybe not?

PERRY: Well, you know, I think it behooves him to keep that answer open. I mean, look, you never say never in this business. You can never tell what the future holds.

But we certainly are, the producers and the actors, looking at this season as being — you know, getting an opportunity to take a whole year to really close out the stories and stuff.

KING: Is it time?

PERRY: I think so. I think so. You know…

KING: You know it when it is.

PERRY: Yes, we did think that we were done last year too, but there was — you know, last year was probably the most successful year we had, and the most creatively successful year, too. So we felt like doing it again, and it all worked out.

KING: How do the scripts look for this year? PERRY: We just shot the first one.

KING: You’ve got a baby now.

PERRY: There’s a baby.

KING: What does that add to? I mean, does it present problems?

PERRY: Well, not really, or at least not yet. So far we’ve just worked with kind of a little mechanical baby that moves in a very strange, frightening way.

But, you know, the writers are so good. I think other shows have gotten trapped, sometimes when they bring a baby or kid on the show, but these guys can — they just keep the stories fresh after nine years, so I think they’ll do a good job with this.

KING: When so much attention came to what you make per show and people look at what Major League Baseball players make are making now, and thinking of going on strike, do you understand the anger of people? They get angrier at athletes than they do at performers.

PERRY: Well, you know, first of all it’s so unfortunate that that salary was out there. Isn’t it weird? Most people, you don’t know their salary.

But the trap that I tried to avoid falling into is feeling guilty about it and thinking, OK, well I don’t deserve this. This is just lottery money. This is just insane money. It’s like a punchline, this salary, you know.

KING: It is.

PERRY: So you kind of just look at it as, yes, nine years ago, we won the lottery. It was kind of a timing-plus-talent thing. Shows don’t usually last this long. Advertising isn’t — you know, shows aren’t usually this prosperous, so…

KING: The economy is different.

PERRY: The economy is different. And it is a bizarre thing. The whole nature of the phenomenal success of the show has taken — it’s taken me a very long time to learn to kind of deal with it in a good way, you know…

KING: What were you doing before you got that show?

PERRY: I was, you know, on worse television shows. I had done — “Friends” was my fifth comedy show, so I had done…

KING: Kind of a: here he comes, another sitcom.

PERRY: Yes, I was like Mr. 13 episode guy, you know.

KING: So there’s a little unreal quality to it? PERRY: It’s — well, the whole thing is surreal. And I think you get into trouble, and you can hit some pitfalls if you take it too seriously, because the whole thing about fame and the whole thing about this insane salary is, it’s kind of — it’s ethereal. You can’t really grab onto it. It’s a very strange thing.

KING: Has it changed your life?

PERRY: Well, it’s changed — I mean, it can’t help but change my life, you know. And there’s been — I would say probably 85 percent of it has been wonderful, it’s all your dreams come true, Disney Land, and then 15 percent of it has been just this very weird experience that the only way you can kind of ground it is in saying that it’s just kind of — in being able to just kind of sit under your covers and giggle about it.

And you remember that time we did that.

KING: I remember it very well.

PERRY: We were laughing, laughing, remember?

KING: I still think of it.

PERRY: Good.

You decided to go with the suspenders today?

KING: All right, we’ll take a break, OK, Perry?

PERRY: OK.

KING: Matthew — had a bit of surprise to it.

Matthew Perry is our special guest. He stars in “Serving Sara.” It opens this weekend. We’ll be taking your calls later. Lots more to talk about with a great talent.

Don’t go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “Serving Sara”)

PERRY: Here.

ELIZABETH HURLEY, ACTRESS: What are you doing?

PERRY: OK.

HURLEY: I said help me, not undress me!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “Friends”)

COURTNEY COX ARQUETTE, ACTRESS: Five more.

PERRY: No.

COX: Five more.

PERRY: No.

COX: Five more and I’ll flash you.

PERRY: One, two, two and a half. OK, just show me one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That, of course, from “Friends,” produced by Warner Brothers, which also owns this — they own everything.

PERRY: Yes, they own everything. They own that microphone.

KING: They own this, the cups, that jacket, get it off. The obvious, Matthew, maybe it’s unexplainable, what happened? Why would someone with everything going his way fall prey to drugs and alcohol?

PERRY: So, we’re entering the serious portion of the interview?

KING: Yes.

PERRY: All right.

KING: And it puzzles those who — I mean, I was a tobacco addict, so I understand addiction. I smoked for 35 years, three packs a day. And I smoked in the shower, I had to smoke. So, I know what it is to be — but why?

PERRY: Well, the interesting thing is had you asked me this question two years ago, I would have no knowledge, I mean, just no idea. I didn’t know why this was happening to me. You know, I thought it was — I kind of thought it was a question of weakness or a lack of strength or a lack of will or just being spoiled or something like that.

KING: Why can’t I not do this?

PERRY: Yes, exactly, because it was, of course, never my intention — I was never this, you know, partier, let’s like close down a hotel room. And I was just a guy that was drinking and drinking more and more and couldn’t stop, and was trying to kind of live my life that way.

And so what happened was, actually on the set of “Serving Sara” is when I kind of had a little — the best way I can describe it is kind of a spiritual moment where, for a split second, you see everything kind of clearly. I can’t really describe it because it’s about stuff that’s bigger than I can really put into words.

But I decided I needed to prioritize my life, and I decided that I needed to risk all the bad publicity, I needed to leave the movie, I needed to leave the TV show and I needed to go get help because I was worried about — it got to the point where I was wondering if I was going to survive.

KING: Just alcohol?

PERRY: Yeah. Well, it was alcohol and then there were other drugs that are actually just as dangerous that I was taking to try to drink less. But it was a completely crazy time.

KING: What do you mean? Used drugs to cut down drinking?

PERRY: Yes. I mean, most of the — I got into a serious problem with painkillers, a painkiller called Vicodin. And that was mostly just to not drink as much as I was. I was getting too hungover, so I tried other things that would try to balance me out.

KING: Now, in this moment of enlightenment, you made all that decision in that kind of time, I’m leaving, I’m going to do this? What did the producers of the movie say?

PERRY: Well, the key was that I didn’t care. I had to not care. I had my family and some friends around who were begging me to do this, to make this choice.

KING: You knew you had a problem?

PERRY: Oh, I knew I had a problem. The…

KING: You weren’t in denial as many are?

PERRY: I was in denial about the serious nature of alcoholism and addiction. That’s what I was going to get to, which I’ve learned about in the last year and a half. I knew I was guy that drank more than anybody else around, and I knew I was guy that couldn’t — once I had a drink, I could not stop. I couldn’t stop. So, you know, you can play that game, well, I’ll just have one martini tonight.

KING: That never worked, right?

PERRY: No, never.

KING: All right. In that moment, when you made this decision, you just said it? You went over to the producer and said, I’m going somewhere?

PERRY: Well, I didn’t actually make those calls. I called, you know — it’s a much more personal thing. I called my father and I called my parents and I said, I’m done. I need to go get help and they were, of course, completely supportive. And, you know, we called some lawyers and we called some — my agents and people in my…

KING: But you kept working until…

PERRY: No, I stopped at that moment. After the evening that I’m talking about, I haven’t had a drink since that moment. And you call — I called a treatment center and people — I was smart enough even then to know that I couldn’t possibly do this on my own, that I was just completely not knowledgeable and not strong enough and just kind of very naive to the true dangers of alcoholism. So I checked into a treatment center in L.A. and went about the path of desperately changing my life.

KING: They just held up the movie?

PERRY: They held up the movie. One of the things that I’m so grateful for is that they were understanding and supportive from the jump. This is people at Paramount and Reginald Hudlin, the director and all those…

KING: Paramount did that.

PERRY: Yes, because, you know, I’m the lead in the movie. And if I don’t show the up next day, 150 people…

KING: How much of the movie was done?

PERRY: We had about 13 days left of the movie. You know? And…

KING: They couldn’t say we’d leave him out of these scenes and…

PERRY: Well, no. When you all see the movie, this weekend, you’ll see that they really weren’t left with much to shoot.

KING: So, they…

PERRY: They had to wait. You know, Reggie Hudlin went and edited what they had had (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so, I mean, it wasn’t as if everybody’s world stopped. But my world stopped and it needed to stop, and I needed to focus on nothing but sobriety and alcoholism. And that’s what I did.

KING: And “Friends?”

PERRY: The “Friends” producers were unbelievably wonderful. They’re just — they’re just great. The three executive producers are wonderful. And they had seen that there was something going on.

KING: So, what did they do?

PERRY: They shot around me. I asked them for the most time that they could give me, not even guaranteeing I would be back.

KING: You were going?

PERRY: I was going.

KING: In other words, if they said you’re off the show or the movie or we’re going to sue you, you’re going?

PERRY: Well, Larry, the thing is, if I don’t have sobriety, I don’t have anything. I don’t have a job. I don’t have…

KING: A life.

PERRY: I won’t have a wife, I won’t have kids, I won’t have anything. And smarter people than myself explained that to me at that very moment.

KING: I want to ask what you learned since. But what did they do at this center? What do they do there? How long were you there?

PERRY: I was there for, at that particular place, for about a month, and then I moved to another place and stayed for about another month and a half.

KING: And what do they do?

PERRY: Well, treatment centers are wonderful places, because you are completely isolated with help. There is no phones, there is no — I wasn’t interested in talking to my agent or talking — you know, you’re surrounded with other people who are in there for the same problem, and it’s mostly an educational process. You learn what happened to you. You face your fears on a daily basis. You get educated on the disease and you open yourself up because the only way for it to completely work is for a complete surrender to take place.

In other words, I need to say, I need to know that the Matthew Perry plan of living my life the way that it was is not working and I need to put my hands in — I didn’t put my trust in the hands of people that have gone through this and have sobriety and have time. And I need to throw out my way of thinking.

KING: Did you want to drink, in the early times?

PERRY: In the early times, yes, absolutely. But the obsession to drink has somewhat miraculously been lifted from me. But at that time, see, it’s all about instant gratification, immediate gratification. You have a disease that’s an obsession of your mind and an allergy of your body. So, there’s a part of your mind that is saying, what are you doing? Just have a drink, you’re going to feel better, you don’t need to deal with the hospital stuff, just go home and have a drink. And you need to realize that part of the mind is out to get you and you need to realize that it’s lying to you.

KING: And this you learned?

PERRY: Yeah.

KING: More with Matthew Perry. As we go to break, here is a scene from a movie as I said I saw today and you’re going to love, “Serving Sara.” Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “Serving Sara”)

HURLEY: Joe, quick, it’s him. Quick.

PERRY: Where? Where?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You stop him, Allison. PERRY: Look, lady, I’m not going to hit a girl, OK.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You go, girl.

HURLEY: Come on Joe!

PERRY: Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.

Nice!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “Friends”)

PERRY: Veronica. Look, it’s got to be Veronica, the girl in the red skirt. I definitely stuck my tongue down her throat.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: That was me.

PERRY: Look, when I’ve been drinking sometimes I tend to get a little overly friendly, and I’m sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: That’s OK.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: That’s all right.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: That’s OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Was it tougher, Matthew Perry, to go into — that’s another — that scene was from “Friends,” right?

PERRY: Yes, it seemed familiar.

KING: We’ve got to credit “Friends.”

PERRY: Ironic.

KING: Ironic. But they own us, too.

PERRY: There you have it.

KING: Is it more of a problem when it’s public?

PERRY: Yes. I mean, it certainly makes it harder.

KING: The guy down the street knows that’s the guy who’s alcoholic.

PERRY: There’s ups and downs about it. At first I thought there was a downside, that it was harder for me, because the nature of the problem, you want to be able to kind of take care of it on your own, with the right people. You don’t want to have to talk about it the all of the time, you don’t want people out there judging all of that stuff. So you know, at first I was thinking that would make it harder. But the benefits of going through this problem in the public eye are tenfold. I mean, it’s amazing. I get to hopefully — I get to, just by showing up to work and just by sitting here talking to you and saying that my life is better, I get to help possibly thousands and thousand of people that I’ve never even met.

It has become — alcoholic and addicts have become some of my favorite people in the world. I find for the most, I find like they’re the most interesting people to talk to.

KING: They’re pretty smart, generally?

PERRY: Well, yes, there’s not a…

KING: There have been studies. The National Institute of Alcoholism showed that I think alcoholics generally tend to have a little higher IQ…

PERRY: Oh, really?

KING: … than the basic population. So I don’t know why.

PERRY: I don’t know either. But for the people who are struggling with this, if I can help out, and I get to help people I haven’t even met, and what’s better than that?

KING: It’s a nice feeling.

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Do you attend meetings of any kind? Do you have to work at it every day?

PERRY: Well, the first part I won’t answer because…

KING: It’s anonymous.

PERRY: There you go.

KING: But is it something that — do you accept that theme, I am an alcoholic and will die an alcoholic?

PERRY: Absolutely.

KING: I just didn’t have a drink today.

PERRY: Absolutely. It wouldn’t be working for me if didn’t, if there was any kind of gray area or any kind of question, that I had another kind of run in me, then it wouldn’t work.

KING: You believe you are addicted? Is this a disease?

PERRY: Yes. KING: You were born with this?

PERRY: Yes. It’s a genetic disease, passed down from generation to generation…

KING: Your father or grandfather…

PERRY: Yes, people in my family, not my father, not my mother. But some people in my family have had it. And you know, that’s absolutely part of recovery, one of the first things is to finally realize that you indeed, you know, have it, and it’s not going to go away. And it’s a progressive disease, so if you’re out there and you’re drinking and worried about it, it’s going to get nothing but worse. It never gets better.

KING: Could you work while you were drinking?

PERRY: I never drank while working. I had a rule about that.

KING: So you were able, even though addicted…

PERRY: Well…

KING: To live by a rule?

PERRY: Well, yes, but it of course affected my work and of course affected my life. Early on, I was OK. But the progressive nature of the disease is, you must, to get the required feeling, you have to drink more, because of the progressive nature. So eventually I did show up to work in states of just insane hangover.

And so it’s basically, I might as well have been drinking. I wasn’t fully there, but I did have this rule. I never — work was always a huge priority to the point that it was actually probably a hindrance in how fast I recovered. Because if I had had that moment that were talking about earlier, earlier in my life, and wasn’t concerned about work and about public appearance and about what other people would think, may have been able to take care of this a little sooner, but I’m so grateful for the timing, so I don’t want to look back.

KING: Do you think it’s a personality thing, like your weight would fluctuate a lot, right? Is that part of some sort of disorder, for want of a better word?

PERRY: I think that mostly had to do with the…

KING: Drinking?

PERRY: With the drinking. I got very thin, deathly thin. There is me at a darker time while taking these — that’s me the other night, though I’ve taken a better picture. I got very thin on this pain medication I was taking, Vicodin.

KING: That curb your appetite?

PERRY: Curbs your appetite, you know, and you would rather take that drug than eat.

KING: Vicodin and liquor don’t mix, do they?

PERRY: I also had a strange rule about that. I never mixed them, either. One thing at a time for me. One deathly dangerous thing at a time.

KING: You were a disciplined drunk?

PERRY: I did my best, and finally giving it up, I’m winning.

KING: Are you confident that you have beaten it?

PERRY: I don’t think you ever — I know that you don’t ever beat it. It’s a dangerous thing to say that you’re confident you have beaten it.

KING: So it is day to day?

PERRY: It’s those sayings that ultimately seem corny but they become life lines. One day at a time is a major saying, and the reason for that is, if you — if I were to sit here and look at the rest of my life and say I’ll never drink for the rest of my life that’s quite a daunting task, but I can certainly make it until tonight when I go to sleep.

KING: Car crashes you’ve had. Were that related to alcohol?

PERRY: No, believe it or not.

KING: Just bad luck?

PERRY: Those were sober — one pretty famous car accident I had was just in the middle of the road and a courier van came around and I swerved to get out of the way and last control of the car and ended up in a house. So that’s probably why it was famous, and the other one is someone hit me.

KING: You ran into someone’s house?

PERRY: Yes. You never saw that picture?

KING: No.

PERRY: There you go.

KING: That’s the house.

PERRY: That’s the house.

KING: Were you injured?

PERRY: No. No, I wasn’t. And it looks a lot — it wasn’t a very well-made house.

KING: What did the guy in the house say? PERRY: Nobody lived there at the time, thank God.

KING: Perry luck.

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Did the bank sue?

PERRY: No, no lawsuits.

KING: Nobody owned it or anything?

PERRY: No.

KING: How important in recovery in all this were friends — I don’t mean the cast of “Friends,” but all your friends.

PERRY: Well, they were very important. At that time you kind of — you kind of see who really cares about you. And the most important people during that time were other people that have this, and people that have recovered from this.

KING: Bonding with fellow…

PERRY: That’s where you really (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Even some of my closest friends, people that I’d take a bullet for, I didn’t see much of in the first year of recovery.

KING: by the way, I’ve heard this, do you find out other people you had no idea were drinkers were drinkers?

PERRY: Sure. Yes. You do.

KING: A guy would come over to you that you know for years?

PERRY: Yes, absolutely. And it’s a wonderful — that’s why it works.

KING: Matthew Perry is our guest. “Serving Sara” opens tomorrow. You’re going to love it. I really liked this movie. We’ll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “FRIENDS”)

MATT LEBLANC, ACTOR: Oh, man! you are so wearing that bracelet.

PERRY: I so am.

LEBLANC: You have any idea what this will do for your sex life?

PERRY: Well, it would probably slow it down at first, but once I get used to the extra weight, I’ll be back on track.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: We’re back with Matthew Perry. Going to your phone calls as well. He stars in “Serving Sara.” It opens this weekend. Why do you think you’re such a tabloid target?

PERRY: Well…

KING: They even have you falling off the wagon, right?

PERRY: Yeah.

KING: Wrong, right?

PERRY: Well, that’s wrong.

KING: Doesn’t that tick you off?

PERRY: Yeah. Of the stories that have written about me ever, that’s the one that really made me angry. I become fascinated with — I mean, let’s think about this for a second. I become fascinated with the moment that the writer, I use the term loosely, the — is coming up with the story, like the actual moment where they’re just absolutely fabricating. It’s fiction. It’s fascinating to me. I laugh at it for the most part.

There’s been amazingly crazy things written about me. But when a guy for money writes that I have been drinking when I have not and possibly hinders that wonderful thing that I was talking about earlier of me being able to help people and show them that it’s possible, and not only is it possible, it’s possible to do in the public eye and possible to do and be happier than you ever been, you want to wring that guy’s neck because he doesn’t understand. He’s so stupid. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.

KING: Because that counts more than people, right, they don’t care.

PERRY: Yes, and they don’t care. And it’s all based on somewhere, at some point, people realize that if you write a story about me, people are going to buy your tabloid. And that’s what it is.

KING: how about links with women?

PERRY: Links with women, you know, that’s been a fascinating thing to watch. Some of the women that I’ve been linked to I’ve gone out with on a couple of dates. Some of them are friends, some of them I’ve never met. So, this whole — I think it is because of a lack of a story. I think there was a lot written about my problems that we’ve gone over. And then when there isn’t that to write about any more, let’s go on and find the next thing. I’m a single guy.

KING: Are they bothersome to you, like, if it says you’re going with whatever or is it just puff?

PERRY: For the most part, really nothing can bother me any more. I mean, look, I’m a 33-year-old man and everything that is possible has been said about me, some true, some not true.

KING: What’s left?

PERRY: You know, what’s left. And also, to tell you the truth, when I’ve been fortunate enough to try to face my fear and conquer alcoholism and addiction and be in success in it, so, you know, nothing is going to scare me more than that, and the tabloids writing these things other than addressing that nature, which gets the hair on my back up.

KING: Have you been in love? I mean, have you been close to…

PERRY: Yes, of course, I’ve been in love. Yes, I’ve been in love. I’ve met some amazing people. And I haven’t…

KING: Do you want to marry?

PERRY: I do, but I think in the last maybe six or seven months of my life, I’ve become a person that deserves somebody wonderful and isn’t scared of that any more.

KING: You didn’t before?

PERRY: No, you know, I had this rather big dark cloud hanging over me for most of my life, so…

KING: Are you in love with anyone now?

PERRY: Just you, my friend.

KING: That’s a given.

PERRY: Yes, just you.

KING: Marlton, New Jersey, as we take some calls for Matthew Perry. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, how have you?

PERRY: I’m well, thanks.

CALLER: Listen, I just want to say, first of all, that I admire you and I think it’s a great thing that you are doing. You’re being so honest and forthright about your problem.

PERRY: Thank you.

CALLER: You’re welcome. And so many others have these problems, so it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And I just want to ask you, how do you, if you do, identify with other celebrities that have the same problem?

PERRY: Well, you know, I mean, this certain problem is — when people deal with alcoholism and addiction, your lives can be completely different. You know, it’s kind of like — it’s a very bizarre thing. It’s like a funnel. You know, everybody is different on the top of the funnel, but when they have their bottom and they go down to, you know, the depths of this disease, everybody is the same.

KING: But we do — Jennifer Capriati is a friend of yours, right?

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Is that romance, by the way?

PERRY: No, that’s a friendship.

KING: She’s battled back, hasn’t she? Do you form a common bond, those of you who have made it back from things?

PERRY: Sort of. You know, with Jennifer, our common bond was mostly the love of sports and kind of…

KING: Because she’s a fighter and down and up…

PERRY: She has come back in her career. I don’t really know anything about any of the other stuff.

KING: No, just back in her career.

PERRY: We’ve both been targets of the tabloids too. So, there is that bonding. And there is also, very bizarre, kind of we’re in the public eye, so we know each other thing that happens at parties and (UNINTELLIGIBLE)…

KING: By the way, people think that you have to know everybody else who is an actor.

PERRY: Well, you and I, you know, we bumped into each other in some elevator and…

(CROSSTALK)

So, there’s that happening.

KING: We do. Vallejo, California, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry, Matthew.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: My question is, Matthew, with the Vicodin, did you find after taking it that you had to increase your dose in order to get the same effect?

PERRY: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that question.

KING: By the way, Vicodin is a very good painkiller when used for the purpose of…

PERRY: Yes, absolutely. But if you have addictive qualities, that’s a no-no. You have got to stay away from that. But 90 percent of the country does not have that, so it’s — I’m not attacking Vicodin at all.

KING: But you needed more?

PERRY: Yes. Alcoholism and addiction is based on — it’s a progressive disease. If you take one for fun at a party and you decide the next week to take one for fun at the party and then it’s going to be one every four days. Then it’s going to be one every three days, and it’s going to eventually escalate.

My intention was never to have a problem with these things. I had kind of this nice, like kind of warm feeling when I took it and that was nice. However, within about eight months, I was up to insane numbers of it, because you need more to get that feeling that you had. And then, eventually, you don’t have the feeling at all. And then you…

KING: Insane numbers like 10, 12?

PERRY: Well, more than that. You know, 20, 30 a day. You know, I know people have that have taken — actually, I don’t want to say too much…

KING: Jamie Lee Curtis, she said it on this show she was a Vicodin addict, took more than that.

PERRY: Yes. But the only problem about saying how many is people who are — if you say 100, then the people who are at 30 think, oh, I’m OK. So, I don’t want to say that.

KING: Ever tempted by cocaine, heroin, any of those?

PERRY: No, those, actually just, for some reason, I think the word scared me. I don’t know. And that fear probably saved my life, because I would have loved those drug probably.

KING: We’ll be right back with Matthew Perry. Here’s another — what are we seeing a scene from?

PERRY: I don’t know, this is your show, man.

KING: They had to tell me — I don’t know everything that’s happening. I sit here.

PERRY: All right, I thought you did. I’m disappointed.

KING: Elevator meetings.

Here’s another seen from “Serving Sara.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “Serving Sara”)

CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER, ACTOR: It took you six days to serve this guy. Six freaking days.

PERRY: Hey, he disappeared on me.

CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER: a guy named Fat Charlie disappeared on you? Poof, Puff the Magic Dragon, just gone, poof, bye-bye.

Let me guess you mean to tell me you ain’t seen the Chrysler Building on your way over here either? If you want to spend your life chasing nickel-and-dime papers, you go right ahead.

PERRY: Ray, the guy was a difficult mark, and I served him clean. What else do you want?

CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER: You know what I want? I want you to be more like Tony here.

PERRY: That’s impossible, I walk upright.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Hey, ladies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: What you’re watching is scenes from last night’s premiere of “Serving Sara.” The co-stars are, of course, Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley.

There’ve been rumors about you two. Anything between you two?

PERRY: No, there’s nothing going on. There were rumors that I was the father of that baby, which was interesting.

(CROSSTALK)

PERRY: Yes, that’s somebody else.

KING: Would you have enjoyed being the father?

PERRY: No. You know, I like the way it makes me sound, impregnating people by not having sex with them, that’s a powerful thing.

KING: But you had good chemistry with her in that movie.

PERRY: Yes, it was — but mostly on-screen.

KING: Are love scenes, by the way, not all they’re cracked up to be? It’s not a turn-on to do a love scene?

PERRY: Well, I know everybody says that, but for me, every one has been right on the money.

KING: Well done.

Visalia, California with Matthew Perry, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Hi Matthew. Happy belated birthday, Matthew.

PERRY: Well thank you.

CALLER: What would you be doing if you were not acting?

PERRY: Oh, you know, I always had aspirations of being a tennis player, being a professional tennis player.

KING: Were you good?

PERRY: You know, I’m pretty good. I was better when I was 10.

KING: You play Jennifer?

PERRY: I — Jennifer and I have played. She, you know, obviously kills me. But I get to play in these charity events from time to time, so I get to kind of pretend like I made it pro.

KING: Why did you become an actor?

PERRY: My father is an actor and…

KING: In fact, you did a scene with him, right?

PERRY: Yes, well, we did — he played my father in a movie called “Fools Rush In” that I did.

KING: We’ve got a scene from that.

PERRY: Oh, you do?

KING: Yes.

PERRY: Wow, that’s…

KING: So was that — want to run that?

Is that what attracted you to it?

PERRY: I think that’s initially how I generated respect for the business. And I just — you know, you kind of always want to follow in — there he is — always want to follow in your father’s footsteps, sort of, and I was lucky enough to be able to kind of do that.

And he was so funny in this movie.

KING: Do you — did you do it in school, college?

PERRY: Yes, I did. You know, initially it was just something — it was like the easiest course in school for me, you know, I just had this kind of — I just had this love for it.

KING: Where did you grow up?

PERRY: I grew up in Canada. I grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the nation’s capital. KING: Hockey fan?

PERRY: Big hockey fan. Big hockey fan. Ottawa Senators, very frustrating around playoff time.

KING: What is it with them?

PERRY: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

KING: Good goaltending…

PERRY: Good goaltending, and you know, they play — you know, last season they were number two…

KING: Overall.

PERRY: Number two team out of the East. And just boom, the playoffs.

KING: Brantford, Ontario, hello.

CALLER: Hi.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: How are you, Matthew?

PERRY: I’m doing all right. How are you?

CALLER: I’m good. I’m really impressed with all of the work you’ve done.

I would like to know if loneliness was one of the root emotions that you had that made you start to use, or kept you using?

PERRY: Well, it’s a really good question. It’s kind of a chicken before the egg thing, because I suppose it starts off, you know — I don’t think alcoholics corner the market on loneliness, but I think there’s kind of a…

KING: You were lonely?

PERRY: I think there’s kind of a special kind of area that we…

KING: You were lonely?

PERRY: Well, then what happens is it’s a very isolating disease, so you — when you’re drinking to the levels that I was, you don’t want to be doing that around too many people, so you want to be doing it alone so nobody sees you doing it. So you have this secret.

So it kind of breeds loneliness. And just trust me, it’s not the way to go.

KING: Now, I know some people who can’t drink alone. They have to be with people to drink. PERRY: Well, you know, you don’t want to — if you’re drinking alone, that’s a bad sign.

KING: Yes. It’s a sign of — and would you drink anything? We’re talking wine, beer?

PERRY: I was mostly a vodka man, you know. I liked to, you know, drink very expensive vodkas. And — but, you know, by the end of the evening you’re mixing that with Mountain Dew.

KING: We’ll be back with our remaining moments with Matthew Perry, who stars in “Serving Sara.”

Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Emmy nominated again, of course. You got nominated again for Chandler Bing.

PERRY: That’s first nomination, actually, for me.

KING: How many has the show won?

PERRY: The show has never won.

KING: The show has never won an Emmy?

PERRY: No. Hopefully…

KING: Who is voting?

PERRY: I don’t know. Maybe the people,,,

KING: Who do you lose to?

PERRY: We’ve lost to — well, you know, some really good shows get nominated. “Sex and the City” and some other shows. But yes, we haven’t taken home the big prize yet.

KING: This year.

PERRY: OK.

KING: Salem Springs, Arkansas, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Matthew. I was wondering if you feel your weight fluctuations have affected your career at all?

PERRY: Well, I suppose it’s been rather an interesting part of my life. You know, in terms of any kind of regret or looking back and wishing I had done something differently so that wouldn’t have been the case, I really don’t have any anymore.

KING: You want a movie career now, by the way? I mean, when “Friends” ends? PERRY: I would love to…

KING: Just do movies?

PERRY: I love movies…

KING: You don’t have to do comedy…

PERRY: Well, I wouldn’t turn my back on television. I love that medium as well, but right now the movie thing is going pretty well for me.

KING: Where were you on 9/11?

PERRY: I was asleep in L.A. and then woke up to that.

KING: How soon after did you have to work?

PERRY: We took about a week, a week off.

KING: Tough coming back?

PERRY: Yes, well, it was tough for everybody. You know, obviously, I was so moved by everybody’s patriotism. There was a question of when is it OK to be funny again, December? I mean, when can you be funny? And I think Mr. Letterman took care of that for all of us…

KING: Were you drinking then?

PERRY: No.

KING: You had stopped?

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Would that have set you off, do you think?

PERRY: Well, it’s such an ego — such an ego driven disease, so an alcoholic in the thrust of his disease can make just about anything about himself, so possibly. But it was a healthy time for me.

KING: I’m going to give you something for you. were 33 years old, right?

PERRY: Thirty-three, that’s right.

KING: I’m going to give you — we never give this. I’m going to give you a pair of braces.

PERRY: Really?

KING: Yes.

PERRY: Really? The ones off your back.

KING: From the show.

PERRY: Great. I will wear them when I’m sleeping tonight?

KING: Matthew. Wear them in an elevator, wear them on an episode. Wear it in a movie.

PERRY: Wow, look at that! The suspenders! All right.

KING: OK. You ever have a crop circle done for you?

PERRY: No.

KING: Well, here’s what happened with me. Something amazing I want to show you. I’ve gotten many tributes over the years. This could be the biggest yet, literally. Take a look at this. It’s a 300 foot by 200 foot crop circle design of me in a field of hay in East Madison, Maine. It’s actually a work by Daniel Bushkoff (ph).

He used plywood to flatten down the hay, and he calls this thing “Learn How to Fly Over a Very Large Larry.” I am humbled and I wish to thank Daniel Bushkoff, and I know that Matthew, you are raging with envy, because you do not have a crop circle.

PERRY: Daniel, you might want to do something better with your free time, my friend. OK? Call up, we’ll figure something out.

KING: That is a little weird, isn’t it?

PERRY: I’m uncomfortable. But I’m glad you enjoy it.

KING: You told me tonight you’re going to go watch “Serving Sara.”

PERRY: Yes.

KING: Not — sit in the back of a regular movie and just watch people watch it.

PERRY: Yes, there’s a radio contest tonight for the movie, and I’m going to — I’m kind of excited to see it with a normal group of people.

KING: Do you learn from that?

PERRY: Sure.

KING: Is it nervous? Premieres are all fans, right?

PERRY: Premieres are all fans and their agents and there are people who…

KING: They cheer the credits.

PERRY: Yes, they tell that you’re great and they got that good fake laugh…

KING: And this one is going to do $10 billion.

PERRY: Oh, yes, absolutely. That would be a nice opening weekend, $10 billion.

KING: You’re going to have a big opening.

PERRY: Thanks, man. Thanks.

KING: You are. But when you watch yourself and there is an audience also watching, what that is like?

PERRY: It’s a very surreal experience. You know, you kind of — the first time you watch, you’re certainly watching to see if it’s working. You’re looking at the audience more than you’re looking at the screen, especially for somebody like me who, as I said earlier, I’m more, I’m used to a television audience, where — that joke obviously worked, look at the 300 people laughing, but in the movie you’re — ooh, now I can finally see some people laughing, and that joke worked.

I’m glad we spent four hours trying to figure out that I should fall behind the couch instead of in front of the couch because it worked.

KING: What are they going to call the “Whole Nine Yards II?”

PERRY: Right now it’s called that.

KING: The “Whole Nine Yards II?”

PERRY: Yes. If you come up with something better, we’re open.

KING: That’s a great title. It’s hard to…

PERRY: Yes, I don’t know. Right now it’s called that. The good thing about this — one of the good things about doing this movie is we have a little bit more lead time to develop a script than we had before. So I guess the goal with any sequel — I don’t know, it’s my first one, but the goal is to obviously make it funnier and bigger and better than the first one.

KING: Can we agree that Bruce Willis is a terrific talent?

PERRY: Oh, he sure is.

KING: Maybe he doesn’t get enough credit, when we talk about great actors.

PERRY: He sure is. Yes, he’s got a lot of credit as big A-list, huge freakish movie star, but I don’t think he’s mentioned enough in the critical world.

KING: My late friend Jackie Gleason made a movie once with a fellow named Tom Hanks, and he told me, this kid, big. You going to be the next Tom Hanks.

PERRY: Thank you very much.

KING: I’m predicting it, Perry. You’re a lot like him, you have that air about you, you look the type, and I think you’re going to get major roles and this one, “Serving Sara,” is just another springboard on a great career.

PERRY: Oh, thank you. I thought the suspenders was a nice gift. That’s a great gift.

KING: I mean it.

PERRY: Thank you very much.

KING: Matthew Perry.

Quite a guy. “Serving Sara” opens this weekend wide, as they say, and this is “Friends” last season. Unless they go a million-and- a-half.

A little joke there, folks.

We’ll be back to tell you about tomorrow night right after this. Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Tomorrow night Lisa Beamer join us. Fascinating lady who’s written a terrific new book, “Let’s Roll.”

Matthew Perry says he was driven to success by primarily one thing: A craving to be famous.

“There was steam coming out of my ears, I wanted to be famous so badly,” Perry told The New York Times in Sunday’s editions. “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant. I didn’t think what the repercussions would be.”

Perry has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, but he does not blame his troubles on fame. He went into rehab in early 2001 while on the set of Serving Sara, which his theaters this week.

Perry says he hasn’t had a drink since his 2001 rehab stint.

“I didn’t get sober because I felt like it,” the Friends actor said. “I got sober because I was worried I was going to die next year.”

Besides the long-running Friends series, Perry has starred in The Whole Nine Yards, Three to Tango and Fools Rush In.

MATTHEW PERRY is nominated for an “Emmy” for his work on NBC’s “Friends,” he has a new romantic comedy, “Serving Sara,” which opens this week, and he has signed a two-picture deal with Paramount Studios that will ensure him a future in film after “Friends” ends next year.

But he is not one to pretend that his good fortune as an actor was all predicated on craft.

“I was a guy who wanted to become famous,” says Mr. Perry, 32, dressed casually in a T-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, his feet propped up on a chair, during an interview here.

“There was steam coming out of my ears, I wanted to be famous so badly. You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant. I didn’t think what the repercussions would be.”

Mr. Perry, who has a well-documented history of alcohol and drug addiction, does not blame his troubles on fame. But his career, which reached a nadir in February 2001 when he abruptly left the set of “Serving Sara” and went into rehab, has been almost a parody of the perils of answered prayers.

“When it happens, it’s kind of like Disneyland for a while,” Mr. Perry says of hitting it big after “Friends” started in 1994. “For me it lasted about eight months, this feeling of `I’ve made it, I’m thrilled, there’s no problem in the world.’ And then you realize that it doesn’t accomplish anything, it’s certainly not filling any holes in your life.”

Neither did the drugs and alcohol, he discovered. “I didn’t get sober because I felt like it,” Mr. Perry says. “I got sober because I was worried I was going to die the next day.” He says he hasn’t had a drink since February 2001.

In person, Mr. Perry is often disarmingly like Chandler Bing, the sarcastic yet sweet-natured guy he plays on “Friends.” “It’s no accident that Chandler is a guy who is trying to deter his own human emotional feelings with laughter,” says Mr. Perry. “That’s what I did for years.”

But Mr. Perry, while affable, sometimes displays a darker, more self-important side of his personality. “Recently I’ve realized how seriously I take myself,” he says. “I’ve tried to palm myself off as being a jokester, kind of like hanging out with me is kind of like a vacation. But that could only take me so far.”

Mr. Perry has a perfectionist streak that dates back to his childhood in Canada, where he became a top-ranked junior tennis player, partly because he practiced about 10 hours a day. “I needed to succeed at whatever I was doing so I could feel better about myself,” says Mr. Perry. “I had this incredible drive on the tennis court, and that translated into acting.”

Before landing “Friends,” Mr. Perry says, he channeled this drive into obsessive activities ? like taking three hours to prepare a clever answering machine message, then asking his friends to critique it and then spending another three hours making it even funnier.

Mr. Perry, whose parents divorced when he was a baby, was raised by his mother, Suzanne Morrison, a one-time press aide for the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, in Ottawa. He moved to Los Angeles when he was 15 to spend more time with his father, the television actor John Bennett Perry. Mr. Perry said he knew he wanted to be an actor from a young age and began auditioning for work shortly after arriving in Los Angeles.

He got a quick start in 1984 with small roles in television shows like “Charles in Charge,” and “Growing Pains.” He also was a co-star in four sitcoms, including “Sydney,” and “Home Free,” which lasted only 13 weeks each. He had supporting roles in the movies, “A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon” (1988) and “She’s Out of Control” (1989.)

Although he got the opportunity of a lifetime when he was cast in “Friends,” it would be two years before he won the lead role in a film, the romantic comedy “Fools Rush In,” with Salma Hayek. And he was not prepared for the pressure.

While being driven home after the first day of shooting in 1996, he asked the driver to pull over. “I got out of the car and as I stood by the side of the road, I thought I was going to throw up,” he says. “I thought, `What have I gotten myself into?’ ”

Mr. Perry says he was intimidated at having to carry a $24 million movie. He was also unfamiliar, at first, with what was required of him on a film after years performing on sitcoms that are taped live in front of an audience with three cameras.

“You’re not hearing any laughter when you’re on a movie set,” says Mr. Perry. “You’re shooting it out of order, which I had never experienced before. You’re meeting the girl, and, the day before, you married the girl.”

Mr. Perry made two more more movies, “Almost Heroes” in 1997 and “Three to Tango” in 1999, both of which were critical and commercial disappointments. “Three to Tango” grossed less than $11 million. But Mr. Perry got especially good reviews when he played a nervous dentist in the well-received comedy “The Whole Nine Yards” in 2000, with Bruce Willis, made during his yearly hiatus from “Friends.” But his charmed life ran out of steam on the Dallas set of “Serving Sara,” a broad comedy with slapstick and scatological humor in which Mr. Perry plays a process server who joins up with Elizabeth Hurley, who is trying to divorce her husband.

Mr. Perry first went into rehab in 1997 for what was described in news reports as an addiction to pain medication. In May 2000, he was hospitalized for pancreatitis, a rare inflammation that can be caused by alcohol and drug abuse.

“I had this odd rule that I would never drink on a set,” says Mr. Perry. “But I went to work in extreme cases of hangover. It’s so horrible to feel that way and have to work and be funny on top of that.”

By the fall of 2000, Mr. Perry says, he was sometimes detoxing on the “Friends” soundstage during run-throughs, sweating and shaking.

Lisa Kudrow, one of his five co-stars on “Friends,” said other cast members knew Mr. Perry was in serious trouble. Mr. Perry says they all tried to help him, but he was in denial about his problems.

“Hard doesn’t even begin to describe it,” says Ms. Kudrow, of the 2000-1 season of “Friends.” “When Matthew was sick, it was not fun. We were just hopelessly standing on the sidelines. We were hurting a lot. Matthew is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. He’s charming and hilarious. Most of our hard laughs came from Matthew.”

Though his problems had worsened by 2001, Mr. Perry said he was able to cope during the first few weeks of filming “Serving Sara” though he was drinking heavily.

“I certainly was not at the top of my game,” Mr. Perry says, “but there was a very weird thing that happened between `Action’ and `Cut.’ Something happened and I was there. Then they’d say `Cut’ and I’d be somewhere else.”

But one night before Mr. Perry was due on the set, with 13 days left of filming, he had what he calls, wryly, “this very lovely spiritual moment.”

“Everything’s clear for one split second,” he says. “I realize, I’ve got to go save myself. I got on the phone and called the people who were willing to help me.”

Mr. Perry flew back to Los Angeles the next day on a private plane. “It was a pretty big surprise to people when I didn’t show up that day,” he says with some irony. Production on the film was halted for two months.

After completing rehab, Mr. Perry finished both his work on “Friends” for the season and his remaining scenes in “Serving Sara.” Then, he says, he “went to the college of me,” to focus on learning more about himself and his addiction. He says he’s grateful that the press coverage of his case was not mean-spirited but said even that didn’t help.

Marta Kauffman, one of three executive producers of “Friends,” said it was “heartbreaking and terrifying” to watch Mr. Perry succumb to his addictions. And she, like the others, is relieved that he has apparently pulled himself out of his slide. “I remember going up to him the first episode of the last season and saying, `I’m so happy you’re back,’ ” she says. “I hadn’t realized how much he hadn’t been there.”

For his part, Mr. Perry says, getting what he wanted so young cured him of at least one obsession.

“If I hadn’t had the experience of being famous,” says Mr. Perry, “I would have searched for it my whole life. I would have just gone on and on trying to find it.”

Matthew Perry’s new comedy, Serving Sara, finally makes its way to theatres after suffering a production delay while Perry dealt with some personal problems. Looking at the finished film, Perry could joke about how his rehabilitation from substance abuse served the character in a method acting sort of way.

“It would be impossible to look at this movie without realizing that this major crossroads in my life took place during the shooting of it,” Perry said. “In a very strange way, and it was no plan of mine, it sort of works in the movie. This guy’s a pretty down and out guy and I was in a pretty down and out time in my life, so it looks like I’m a genius. It looks like I’m doing some Robert De Niro Raging Bull kind of thing because at the end of the movie, it was three months later and here’s me back.”

Perry is used to having his private life made public, and he will openly talk about facing his problems. What he won’t stand for are rumors that can harm others. As recent reports claim he has begun drinking again, Perry vehemently refuted such claims.

“I like to think that the upside of being in the public eye going through a series of events as difficult as this is that you’re probably helping a lot more people than just some guy who’s doing it. So, if I’m influencing and helping all these people that I love because they’re going through the same problem that I was, and then they pick up a newspaper and read that I’m carrying some flask or something somewhere, then it may hurt their sobriety. I get paid very, very well to deal with lies and to deal with all that stuff. I don’t look at it like I get paid to act. I get paid for all the crap that’s in between. But these people don’t. So, if they’re hanging their hopes on hopefully a guy they relate to that’s having a problem, and then they read that he’s back, it may hurt them.”

Aside from that, Perry can laugh at some of his ridiculous press. “If I go by tabloids, I started drinking again, I’m the father of Elizabeth Hurley’s baby, I’m married to Jennifer Capriati, I’m dating a bunch of actresses I’ve never met. I like the way it makes me sound but I can’t do all that stuff in a four month period. Some of it is okay and you just kind of laugh at it. They’re mostly written like romance novels anyway, they’re just so badly written.”

Hurley is Perry’s co-star in Serving Sara. Perry plays process server Joe Tyler, assigned to deliver divorce papers to Sara (Hurley). But, Sara realizes if she serves her husband first, she’s entitled to a large settlement. So, she offers Joe a deal to share the settlement if he’ll help her serve her soon to be ex first. If it were that easy, there’d be no movie, so prepare to see comic chaos involving torn clothing, gunplay and the masturbation of a bull via milking the prostate.

“It’s very difficult to describe what goes on there,” Perry said of the bull scene. “I have to shove my entire arm into the south end of a north facing bull, right? Somebody said that and it’s the only way to put it. How else do you do that?”

Slapstick is an art Perry discovered more in his movie career than on television. “I never really thought of myself as a physical comedian until we did The Whole Nine Yards where there was a lot of physical stuff. The influence there was Buster Keaton and early Chevy Chase stuff. Then we brought a lot of it into Serving Sara.”

One of the trademarks of physical comedy is the spit take, and Perry gets to do a honey of a spit take in Serving Sara. “I do a little known spit take. It’s the double spit take. I think what makes spit takes really funny is when you actually spit out more than you drank. That’s because we cut the camera and put in more than I had drank. The best spit take in the world is not from an Alan Arkin and Peter Falk movie called Big Trouble. If you want to rent the best spit take ever, and I know you do, that’s the one.”

Both fans and critics will mention a phenomenon called “The Friends Curse” where actors from the hit sitcom just can’t find a successful film. Courtney Cox bucked the trend with the Scream series, and Perry became the second bucker with The Whole Nine Yards. Perhaps the secret is not trying to stray too far from the roots to which the public has grown attached.

“If you’re lucky enough to be involved in something as successful as Friends or as successful as some huge movie, you’re going to be compared to that guy. The problem is that I enjoy being in comedies, so that means that my guy in the movie has to be funny. Chandler’s funny and these people in these movies are funny and we look a lot alike, so there are going to be similarities. The key is, while not throwing your audience too much for a loop really early on, to find little differences that you can play. For instance, one of the reasons I wanted to do Serving Sara was I saw the character of Joe as a really dark, very wounded, miserable guy in the beginning. That was attractive to me, so Reg[inald Hudlin, the director] and I talked about the levels of how bad and how dark we could take this guy. The nature of that kind of character arc was appealing.”

As Friends enters its ninth year, Perry reflected on the challenges he continues to enjoy. “I don’t know how it keeps fresh. I think it’s because the actors keep getting older and their opinions and their ways of looking at their lives change. So, I got the show when I was 24 years old and now I’m 33. That’s a pretty significant little patch of time. What I like about the show is it’s been quite realistic in people growing up. Chandler was a pretty neurotic freak guy when the show first started. Now he’s married. I think it would be very sweet if they started to have a kid and if you got the impression that these six people are going to leave you like hopefully you are in a better position in life than when we all met.”

Perry is nominated for an Emmy this year in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy series category, as are some of his other Friends colleagues. This is the first year they have entered that category. “We kind of just all sort of agreed and it was a pretty rapid decision. It wasn’t too well thought out. We’re all kind of the leads on the show. We also haven’t had that much success, frankly, in the supporting category, so we decided to go for it.”

Next, Perry will star in The Whole Nine Yards 2, with Bruce Willis, Natasha Henstridge and Amanda Peet also returning. “We’re going to start that in the middle of October. Everybody’s back and the goal there obviously is to make a bigger, funnier movie than the first one and I think we’re in good shape so far.”

The October start date means he will be filming simultaneously to shooting Friends. “They moved the locale of the movie from Montreal to Los Angeles. Friends’ schedule, because we’ve been doing it so long now, we’ve kind of got it down so it’s not that difficult to schedule. So, I think it will all work out.”