Hunks of Hollywood: Watch your backs! Not since Warren Beatty has one single man wooed so many. Now, as Matthew Perry’s summer of serial dating winds down, Us uncovers the top 10 reasons why the Serving Sara star is so, so, so irresistible.

In the past months, Matthew Perry, 33, has been spotted noshing in New York with Rose McGowan, giggling at a party with Renee Zellweger, playing doubles with Jennifer Capriati at a celebrity tennis tournament, getting cozy with Amanda Peet in a Beverly Hills cafe, squiring Glimore Girls star Lauren Graham to dinner, taking in a movie with Heather Graham, smooching on-screen with Liz Hurley in their new film, Serving Sara and emerging from a closet yep, a closet- with a blonde at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont hotel. So what does he have that other guys don’t? as it turns out, a lot.

1. He’s plain cute.
His eyes: “They’re so blue,” said Friends costar Lisa Kudrow. And the best part? He doesn’t know how cute he is. Said pal and writing partner Andrew Hill Newman: “He’s better looking than he thinks.”

2. He’s funny. Really funny.
What makes him attractive? His Whole Nine Yards costar Peet (they’re both in the sequel) put the question back to Us: “How much time do you have?” She insists they’re not an item but says, “He makes me laugh so hard that I’m sure I spit everywhere. Also, he’s, you know, easy on the eyes.” That again!

3. He listens.
“I used to have the dating problems,” he tells Us, “where you are just not really being yourself. I would be going out with this girl for, like, four weeks, and she would think I was really funny, but I would know absolutely nothing about her. I have learned to listen more.”

4. He’s sensitive!
He owns Barry Manilow’s greatest-hits CD. He cried during Men Don’t Leave. “Matty’s one of the most sensitive people I’ve ever met,” said Friends costar Jennifer Aniston, “more that most girls I know.” Matty?

5. He’s romantic (kind of).
He used to like quiet dinners by the beach. But I decided to stop doing that, because when I was 19, I took this girl to the beach not a smart girl and she looked out at the ocean, and she said, “I had no idea the ocean was this small.” How stupid is that?

6. He admits to having a girly laugh.
“I have this Alan Alda-like weird cackle if you really crack me up, it’s embarrassing,” he says. “It’s not masculine.”

7. He’s a good Friend.
ON opening weekend for Aniston’s The Good Girl, Perry was there in line at the Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica, California (with a guy buddy, for a change). He shelled out his $8.50 and even bought his own hot dog.

8. He won’t kiss and tell.
A ranked junior tennis player as a teen in Canada, Perry is mum on Capriati. He just happened to cheer her on at June’s French Open. And at July’s ESPY Awards. All he’s said? “Let’s just say I am playing a lot of tennis right now.”

9. He can handle rejection.
At the Lounge in Los Angeles, a Perry pal asked a woman on the actor’s behalf if she’d like to dance with his friend. She said no. “As a joke, Perry asked me himself, and I said no again,” the turner-downer tells Us. He said, “Not funny you should have said yes. that would have been funny.”

10. He’s gotten real.
“The biggest thing is happiness,” he tells Us. “If somebody is outgoing and if they are beautiful, then that helps. Somebody who�s walking through their days happy [and] makes me laugh is really important. Yeah.” Yeah!

After a stormy four-year battle with addiction, the sun is finally shining on Friends star Matthew Perry.

Matthew Perry says his life is so good now, he’s afraid he’ll forget the bad times and wind up repeating them. That would seem nearly impossible, because the bad times were truly horrific. The 33-year-old Friends star says his problems began when he became hooked on the prescription painkiller Vicodin after a 1997 jet ski accident. A four-year battle with drugs and alcohol ensued. Perry landed in rehab twice, was hospitalized with an alcohol-induced disease of the pancreas, and crashed his Porsche into a house. Perry’s latest trip to rehab temporarily shut down the filming of his current movie, Serving Sara. After two and a half months of treatment, Perry finished the movie. He says he’s been sober ever since. Now, Perry is obsessed with improving his tennis game he was a ranked junior tennis player in his youth, trains daily with a professional coach, and he’s rumored to be dating tennis ace Jennifer Capriati and he’s planning for his life after Friends. This season, for which Perry is pulling down a cool $24 million, is expected to be the series’ last. Upfront’s Jenny Peters caught up with Perry last month and chatted with him about all of it.

UPFRONT: What are you up to these days?

PERRY: I have promised myself to become the best tennis player that I can become, and I am on my way to doing that.

UPFRONT: Are you getting any pro tips from Jennifer?

PERRY: Yeah. Jennifer Capriati is a friend of mine but we are not getting married or whatever the theory is this week. We talk about tennis. We both love tennis.

UPFRONT: What is it like to play with her? Can you win a game?

PERRY: No. I can hit with her. We can have rallies together and stuff, but as soon as we play a set she just kills me. I prefer her to be my mixed doubles partner. The other day we played against Serena Williams and Rick Fox and we won.

UPFRONT: Does she give you a few points when you play singles?

PERRY: She just wipes the floor with me.

UPFRONT: You’re still fairly close to your battle with drugs and alcohol. Do you feel stronger as a result of rehab and everything you’ve been through?

PERRY: Yeah, it is an amazing feeling. Having gotten through that and continuing to work to get through it is very empowering. When you spend your life on a day-to-day basis facing your fears and trying to figure why you are living life in a way that is harmful to you, you can’t help but come out the other end feeling stronger.

UPFRONT: Is what happened to you the price of fame?

PERRY: I think fame intensifies the problem. Part of the solution to the problem is realizing that you are just like a regular guy and if you think that you are more important or bigger than life, it is a hindrance to solving the problem. If everybody has got a big light on you, you have to realize that that it is like ether. It is not real. That light is going to be turned off and you are still going to be the guy standing there.

UPFRONT: So how are you going to deal with it moving forward?

PERRY: It is a lifelong thing. It is a disease that you have and [the treatment] is a maintenance program. The key is to not forget how bad it was. I am walking around in my days right now pretty joyful, pretty happy, and having a really good time in my life, so it would be kind of easy to forget how bad things got. That is the danger.

UPFRONT: How bad did it get? When did you know that you really had to get help?

PERRY: The night before I had to leave the movie. It got bad enough that I was scared for my survival.

UPFRONT: Would you say this has been the toughest struggle of your life?

PERRY: Oh yeah, without question.

UPFRONT: Do you have any advice to people out there who have drug or alcohol problems?

PERRY: You know, the one cool thing about not doing this anonymously is that I do get the sense that I can kind of help people just by showing up and doing my job. I thought that I needed [drugs and alcohol] in my life to be happy or to have fun, and the truth of the matter is that is just is not the case. I have been sober for a little over a year-and-a-half, and it has been the most amazing year and a half. The day-to-day process of my life is pretty off-the-charts great.

UPFRONT: Well, that amazingly cool BMW convertible you drive is definitely great. Can you tool around in that car in L.A. and not get accosted at stop lights?

PERRY: It is the one little luxury I allow myself to have. I don’t care that people can see me; I just love driving that car so much. But I also have a hide-me kind of car, too.

UPFRONT: Do people honk and yell when they do see you?

PERRY: They honk because I am on this show that I am in everybody’s living room each week. It is different than maybe some of the guys who just do features because there is this feeling that they know me. It is almost like at a red light I am picking up this conversation that is still occurring with someone that I don’t know. I just jump into their lives, so it is surreal. Sometimes it is fun. Sometimes you wish you had a machine so you could just turn it off.

UPFRONT: What about with girls? When you get to be so well known, can you just be a guy and take a girl out on a date?

PERRY: No, you can’t go on a blind date ever again, so that is over. I think I am pretty good at that radar of somebody who is just out with me because I am on a show. But if the girl is hot enough I don’t care why she is out with me [laughing].

UPFRONT: Is this really the last year of Friends?

PERRY: Yes, I believe it is the last year. But never say never. Friends: the Movie will never happen, I promise.

UPFRONT: Jennifer Aniston said there will never be A Very Friends Christmas either.

PERRY: I don’t think so. But maybe if all of our careers hit the skids in like 20 years, we will show up.

UPFRONT: Are you going to miss Chandler?

PERRY: Of course. I got this show when I was 24 and I will be 33 when I leave. Those are pretty important years there. I don’t like to think about it too much, but those last few weeks are going to be really hard. You like to think that if a door closes in your life another door opens somewhere and your job is to find it.

UPFRONT: How would you like to see Chandler go out?

PERRY: You know, Chandler is probably the guy who has grown up the most on the show. He started out as this absolute neurotic freak boy and now he is married. I think it would be really nice if Monica’s last line to Chandler was something like “I am pregnant” or something like that.

UPFRONT: What’s next for you?

PERRY: First we’re going to do the sequel to The Whole Nine Yards. After that the lovely people at Paramount who did Serving Sara have been kind enough, based on that film, to offer me a couple more movies. Hopefully, the next one up will be this drama called One of Us that I just love. There is not a joke to be found in it, so that will be a great challenge. I hope I am up to the task.

Matthew Perry talks in detail for the first time about last year’s life and death struggle against addiction and his ongoing fight to stay clean.

The Former addict famously relapsed on the set of his new movie ‘Serving Sara’. But Matthew Perry says he’s swappeddrink, drugs and junk food for a healthy new lfestyle.

Pay no attention to the rumours, says Matthew Perry. At age 33, single and finally free from the dependence on painkillers which plagued him for much of his twenties, his name has been linked lately with those of desirable women all over the world. there’s Elizabeth Hurley, his co-star in the forthcoming romantic movie Serving Sara; his good pal tennis ace Jennifer Capriati; and, just last week, Bridget Jones’ Diary star Ren�e Zellweger. If you believe everything you hear, Matthew has been a busy boy.

So has he? As he revealed to Now last week: “I can’t do anything without rumours, it seems, but the thruth is, right now,I don’t have a girlfriend - thanks for reminding me. Elizabeth? She’s a beautiful, smart, witty woman, we worked well together and it was really nice meeting her. But, for the record, I didn’t father her baby!”

“Jennifer’s a good friend and we have fun together. But we’re just friends.” He stops and - being Matthew Perry - can’t resist cracking a joke: “In fact, it’s weird but true… Jennifer is the father of Elizabeth’s baby!”

Of the six young singletons who became famous in Friends back in the early nineties, the three women are now married and Matt LeBlanc is engaged to beautiful model and mother-of-two Melissa McKnight. Only Matthew and his good buddy David Schwimmer remain single. “But it’s not as though David and I are these die-hard single people”, he points out. “I don’t go punching my fist in the air, shouting: ‘Yeah!! We’re still out there!’ I don’t think it’s a great thing we’re single, I think it’s kind of pathetic.”

“David and I are still looking for Miss Right as much as anyone is. The fact that we haven’t found her yet is more random than anything else Maybe we’re working too hard to go out and look.”

Jokes aside, he admits that much of his energy in the last few years has been taken up with fighting his dependence on drugs. He first sought help for his addiction to painkillers in 1997 and, early last year, the filming of Serving Sara was interrupted while he checked himself in to a clinic to address the problem once and for all.

He is now, he says, drug-free and intending to stay that way. “It has been pretty well documented”, he says slowly, “that I had to leave the set of Serving Sara because I was getting pretty sick and needed to go somewhere and change my life. Which is what I did.”

“I was lucky that the people I was working with understood that and didn’t look at me like I was doing a bad thing. They knew I was in trouble and that I needed to go and take some time to really focus on it. I was able to do that and come back to finish the movie, so it all worked out really well.”

Matthew is considered to be one of Hollywood’s wittiest stars - his Friends character Chandler Bing was reputedly based on the real-life Matthew - but he confesses that, too often in the past, the laugh-a-minute exterior was hidden a person who was confused and insecure. “I’ve always liked making people laugh”, he says. “Most of the time, it’s a really nice way to be.”

“But I also used humour as a tool. If there was any emotional stuff going on, I’d crack a joke in an attempt to deflate the situation. Which made for a really great sitcom character but, unfortunatelly, if you try to move that into your real life, it just becomes too much. You can’t keep that up the whole time. You get exhausted.”

He admits that, in the past, his wisecracking has wreaked havoc on his love life. “It’s great at the start of a relationship - I always find that if you can make a girl laugh on the first and second dates, then you’re doing pretty well. But I also found that, on the seventh date, if you made one more joke she’d want to kill you! So i(ts a question of finding the right balance.”

Balance, he says, is what he’s now in the proces of learning. “As I get older - especially in the last couple of years, during which my life has changed so much - I’m trying to be more comfortable in those emotional situations, trying to listen to people and talk to them instead of just going for the jokes.”

“It all comes down to bringing myself down to size. I’ve been trough some dark times, but thing have become brighter in the last year and a half, as a result of me not taking myself too seriously and taking myself more seriously - all at the same time.

These days, he says, he’s living a healthy life in all sorts of ways. “I don’t drink or do drugs anymore - that’s the biggest change, of course. Taking a lot of time to exercise and eating a lot less cheeseburgers helps. By taking away every piece of pleasure I had in my life, I’ve become a healtier person.”

“Seriously, I’m feeling better now than I ever have. I’ve taken up tennis again, which is so much fun. I used to play as a kid - in fact, when I was 13 or 14, I played in national tournaments. I gave it up about 15 years ago, but 18 months ago I decided to get back into it, dedicate myself and play as well as I can. The results have been great.”

All in all, it sounds as though he’s ready to turn some of those romantic rumours into reality. “I hope so”, he agrees, serious for once. “I’ve had my share of ups and downs in relationships over the years, but I’m a romantic at heart, so I live in hope.”

“I think water seeps to its own level, meaning that if you’re in a place in your life then you’ll attract other people who’ll also be in a tough place. But I’m not in that dark place anymore.”

“I’m living my life on a daily basis, as a pretty happy guy looking for the future. Hopefully, I’ll attract people who live their life in the same way.”

“It’s funny, because of Friends a lot of beautiful women want to know me. But I’m looking for someone who enjoys her life and is happy. That’s the most attractive quality you can find in a person.”

Cleanliness is not a priority for guys; we can dwell in dire situations. At age 19, I lived in an apartment with cigarette butts stuck in pizzas. The bathroom was insane. I gathered 40 bucks to pay a maid. Maria showed up, said, Oh, no, and left. I never saw her again. I hope she’s well.

Today, every chair in my house has a coat hanging on it. My Friends dressing room frightens children. I get away with it because I’m in the acting profession. People just think, He’s artsy. They walk by, laugh, then ask me to shut my door.

Part of the reason guys are slobs is stupidity. I try to do laundry, but I don’t understand how. You’ve got whites and colors, but then there’s a white shirt with red sleeves. At that point, I don’t want to play anymore.

There’s a rebellious thing going on too. Growing up, boys are told “Go clean your room” because we did something bad. Maybe we correlate cleaning with something bad happening. It’s a question for Dr. Phil.

I’ve gotten neater. I’m in my thirties now and shouldn’t be tripping over pizza boxes on my way to play video games. As guys get older, even we get bothered by our filth. Until we realize that women rule the universe, they’ll have messy houses. But they’ll be living in them alone.

Could he possibly be as adorable and funny in real life as he is on TV? By Lauren Brown

Chandler Bing, Matthew Perry’s Friends Character, may be retiring (sniff, the series end May 2003), but not to worry you’ll be seeing a lot of Matthew in the movie theater! First up: the romantic comedy Serving Sara, costarring Elizabeth Hurley, due out later this month. But it’s easy to see that Matthew is going to miss being Chandler if you ran into him on the street, you’d see that Chandler is Matthew (we were psyched to discover Chandler’s whole “could I be any funnier” bit is how Matthew really talks). And despite his recent battle with an addiction problem, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor about himself.

CosmoGirl!: Your character in Serving Sara goes on a road trip. Are you a road trip kinda guy?
Matthew Perry: I’m a much bigger fan of taking a plane and getting there. But I’ve done the odd Vegas road trip, because my friend was afraid of flying, and you know, you get to see the biggest giant thermometer in the world. I don’t know who it’s built to measure–but I don’t want to meet him!

CG!: Neither do we! We hear you improvise a lot of Chandler’s jokes what’s your favorite example?
MP: One time there was a Cap’n Crunch box that props had just put on set. So Matty (LeBlanc) and I just improvised this thing about the box where Joey said, “You know, Cap’n Crunch’s eyebrows are actually on his hat! If he ever loses it he’s screwed!” So Chandler says, “Joey, the man is the captain of a cereal box I think eyebrows are the least of his problems.” It’s those little kinds of downbeats in scenes that I always love.

CG!: Where will Chandler be in, say, 10 years?
MP: I hope he’s thrown the sweater-vests away I’ll say that first! Hopefully, he’s had kids and is still in love with Monica. The thing is, in 10 years, Chandler probably won’t be as funny, because his life will be more together. So a show about him would have to be some one-hour drama about a guy who’s pretty much got it together.

CG!: We hear there’s a good story about how you landed the role of Chandler?
MP: Yeah, I no longer believe in coincidence. I think a coincidence is like God winking, because the way I got Friends was pretty strange. I had run out of money, so I did a pilot called LAX 2194 that was about, I kid you not, baggage handlers in the year 2194 at the Los Angeles airport. I was wearing, like, a futuristic shirt, and all these midgets were around playing aliens it was crazy.

CG!: What happened after that?
MP: There was this show called Friends Like Us that all of my actor friends were auditioning for. They kept calling me about this character called Chandler and saying, “This guy is you, so can you help me read for it?” Some of my friends were close to getting it, but like magic, LAX 2194 wasn’t picked up. So I got to audition for Friends at the very last minute.

CG!: Kismet! Were you funny even as a kid?
MP: Absolutely. When I was in the sixth grade, this very strict teacher told me that I wasn’t going to amount to anything if I didn’t drop this sarcastic attitude toward life. Ten years later, I was on the cover of People Magazine, I sent it to him and said, “I guess you were wrong, dude.”

CG!: Did you ever hear back from him?
MP: No, I guess he’s being bitter. I try not to base too much of my life on outside praise anymore, because I think you can go crazy if you rest too much importance on that.

CG!: Those are great words of wisdom! Now, we have to ask: Does your humor work with the girls?
MP: Well, humor’s a good opener. My favorite line is to go up to a girl who’s wearing, like, a pretty dress and say “You know, I had to come talk to you because I have that same outfit.” If she laughs, there’s potential! If she doesn’t, I go home and put on a pretty dress!

CG!: Sounds like the making of a Friends episode!

His ninth and final season of Friends is about to begin, but Matthew Perry still has a few aspirations tfor his TV alter ego, the perpetually flummoxed Chandler Bing. “I hope he drops the safe job and deals with the panic that comes with that,” says Perry, who has endured his own growing pains - most publicly a couple of stints in rehab over the past five years. Things are back on track now for the
33-year-old actor, who stars in the new movie “Serving Sara” and is set for a sequel to “The Whole Nine Yards”. His newfound serenity has even made its way into his wardrobe. “My style is much calmer now,” he says.

You’ve played one character for eight years. Exactly how much are you like Chandler?
We’re very much alike. But Chandler is funnier, more neurotic, more emotional. He’s an exaggerated form of myself.

What was your style growing up?
Preppy. I would wear three Lacoste shirts so there would be three collars. Everybody would be wearing T-shirts to school and I’d wear a suit and tie because that’s what Michael J. Fox did on family ties.

Where you popular as a kid?
I was the most popular of the geeky kids.

Your dad, actor John Bennett Perry, was the Old Spice guy in TV commercials. What was his influence on you?
He’s my favorite guy in the world. He’s also stupidly good-looking. I’d bring girls home and they’d stop looking at me. It was very depressing. But he taught me to have a full life away from acting, which I didn’t pick up until much later.

Are you now leading a full life?
Downtime is very valuable to me. I used to not read books unless I knew that somebody was going to walk in and see me. Now I find there’s value in reading just for me.

You’ve been trough a lot recently. With all the drama, what have you learned?
I can look you in the eye and say that I don’t have irritational fear in my life anymore. I spent a solid year working on that because I would wake up in the middle of the night and be scared.

You’ve been linked to various women. Are any of the stories true?
Well, I’m a red-blooded Canadian-American male. But some of the stories are just not true. Jennifer Capriati is a good friend of mine; there’s nothing romantic there. I’m lucky that I have the time and can afford to go and watch my friend play in the French Open. I certainly don’t want the image of a playboy guy who dates everone - that’s not my thing.

Would you like to be in a relationship?
I want to be married and have kids and find the right person to do that with. I finally feel like I have become the kind of person who could earn someone worthwhile.

So what do you look for in a mate?
I’ll tell you what really intrigues me: people who had torture in their lives and rolled their sleeves up and gotten to the other site. Those are the fun ones to talk to.

Have you reached the other site?
For better or worse, I’m a self-aware guy. Now that I’ve gotten through some of the dark things in my life, I am entertained by the little bent view I have of the world.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever worn?
You know how it’s “in” to wear kooky pants? I call it the David Arquette style. I went to some store and bought the ugliest pants I have ever seen. They’re like blue grandma pants. I worn them at my little sister’s birthday party. My family said “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m sorry, this is what people are wearing now - pants that look bad.” I might send them to David.

You’re known as an avid tennis player. How good are you, really?
When I was about 4, my grandfather taught me how to play. By the time I was 8, I could beat him - but I waited until I was 10. I was beating the best players in the club by age 11. I was getting the attention I was craving. But I wasn’t good enough to make a career of it.

Is it a handy release for agression?
I’ll regress to my childhood on the court sometimes. But I’m not really an angry guy. If you wrong me, I’m going to go somewhere away from you. I’m not going to take it out on you. I’m not the bullish kind.

What do you find sexy on a woman?
I am embarrassed to say, but my favorite look ever is the little floral dresses from arround ‘95 or ‘96 that they wore with white socks. I also like those tank tops that girls wear with the bra strap that is a different color. I don’t like overdone women and I don’t like women who really don’t make an effort at all.

What does romance mean to you?
My viewpoint on this has totally changed. Now romance is looking someone in the eye and caring about what they are saying. I used to think about how much longer I had to sit and listen until we did something I wanted to do. Now I’m a big “soft music, candles, get the girl flowers, open the door for her, stand up when she leaves the table” kind of guy.

Friends ends this spring after nine seasons. Have you imagined what it will be like to say goodbye?
The end of the show is going to be sad, sad, sad - not a dry eye in the house. I just picture Aniston; somebody’s going to have to pick her up off the ground. We will never have a situation like this again, and everybody realizes that. When these six people say goodbye to each other, it’s going to be pretty heavy. I don’t even like to think about it.