Could the new Netflix documentary about Matthew Perry be even more heartbreaking?
The three-part documentary, “The One About Matthew Perry,” covers the “Friends” star’s life, career, struggles with addiction and untimely death.
After rising to fame in the iconic role of Chandler Bing on “Friends,” which aired for 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004, and maintaining a tight grip on the cultural zeitgeist over the years by continuing to find new audiences on streaming, Perry died at age 54 on October 28, 2023.
The actor’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, speaks on screen for the first time in the documentary, alongside several of her lifelong friends.
However, none of her “Friends” co-stars — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer — chose to participate in the project.
Here are all the revelations from “The One About Matthew Perry”.
Perry felt ‘very similar’ to Chandler
When Perry auditioned for “Friends,” he said he thought Chandler was “very similar to (him),” describing him in archival footage shown in the documentary as “a guy who was kind of trying to distract everyone from their misery by being funny.”
“I remember (Perry) saying, ‘Someone wrote a script, it’s me,'” said his longtime friend David Pressman. “Chandler, it’s definitely him.”
Former NBC executive Warren Littlefield recalled that there was “anxiety” among the producers of “Friends” because casting was easy except for Chandler. “And then Matthew Perry walked into the room,” he said.
It took “less than 30 seconds” after Perry’s audition for everyone in the room to feel, “‘Oh yeah, that’s it. It’s Chandler. He just made it,'” Littlefield said.
Perry had two familieswhich made him feel “too needy”
“The beliefs I had were: I was too needy, I wasn’t enough and I didn’t matter… my whole life was about trying to make those three things not be true,” Perry said in archival footage.
His father, John Bennett Perry, 85, is also an actor. After his parents separated when he was a baby, Perry said, “The only way I could see my father regularly was on television. »
When Perry was just 5 years old, he flew alone from his mother’s house in Montreal to join his father in Los Angeles. “They put something on my head that said ‘unaccompanied minor’ and I was incredibly scared,” he remembers.
Both of Perry’s parents went on to have other families: His mother Suzanne married “Dateline” host Keith Morrison, and the couple had four children, while Perry’s father married Debbie Boyle and the couple welcomed Bowick.
Perry wouldn’t have been surprised to become famous
As “Friends” quickly became a phenomenon, Littlefield recalls, “The actors had this feeling of, ‘Us? This is happening to us?’ and Matthew said to me, “Of course it happens!” »
Bowick noted that his brother’s fame was a “massive life-changing” moment for their entire family.
“Every time I was with him, we were followed by paparazzi and we also had photos taken,” she recalls. “All of a sudden, this is our new reality. »
Perry was ‘generous’ with his money
Bowick noted that his older brother was “always incredibly generous with his money.”
One Christmas, when she was 15, she remembers they were leaving a restaurant when the valet pulled up in a red Ford Mustang convertible and asked, “Is Mia Perry there?”
When Bowick responded in confusion, she remembered Perry telling her, “Yeah, it’s your car – Merry Christmas!” »
Perry ‘does well with girls’
Pressman said Perry “did well with girls” because “he knew how to charm them,” adding that the duo visited the Playboy mansion together “a lot.”
Perry’s friend Marjorie Harris Newman noted that Perry “had this kind of character” that he “never” had the girl and said, “But when I’m famous, I’ll have all the girls.”
Former “Friends” writer Jeff Strauss said Perry went from being someone who was awkward around women in the same way Chandler was to being “a guy who fought women” when he became famous.
Perry’s experience of fame ‘started to change’
Bowick noted that at first it seemed like Perry “loved the fame but, at some point, that started to change.”
In archive footage, Perry admitted: “I was extremely happy when I became famous. Then, after about six months, I was like, ‘Uh oh.'”
“It didn’t fix what was inside me,” he said. “It didn’t do what I thought it would.”
The actor had a “feeling of emptiness or loneliness” dating back to his childhood that he “couldn’t really fill,” Bowick explained, noting that it was “difficult for him to find a space that he felt really safe in” while he was tossed between his two families.
Perry started drinking at age 14
When Perry was 14, he got drunk for the first time “and was in heaven.”
“I thought, ‘This must be what normal people feel all the time,'” he said in archival footage.
Because he was “secretive” and “drinking alone,” Perry’s friends didn’t know right away, Newman said.
She speculated that the alcohol had reached “this very deep part of himself that always thought he wasn’t enough”, adding that she thought “he thought becoming famous would fill that hole”.
Perry started abusing painkillers because of a jet ski accident
Doug Draizin, the producer of Perry’s 1997 romantic comedy “Fools Rush in,” recalled that filming was going well until the actor “got permission to go on a jet ski” on Lake Mead during lunch break.
“He threw himself in the air and hurt himself,” Draizin said.
In archive footage, Perry explained that doctors then gave him painkillers, from which he “felt this incredible euphoria.”
“So why don’t I take more?” he reasoned. “And I started feeling sick when I wasn’t taking them.”
Draizin said he saw Perry again four or five months later: “I was like, ‘This guy is very sick.’ I thought it could have been cancer, it could have been something immune.
At the time, Draizin noted, Perry attributed his appearance to a lack of sleep.
His sister discovered his addiction thanks to the tabloids
In 1997, when Bowick said she was at the grocery store as a teenager, she saw tabloid newspapers with headlines about her brother’s addiction scandal.
“I remember thinking, ‘That’s obviously not true. I would know if something happened. I’m his sister. We’re close,'” she recalled.
However, when she asked her parents about it, they admitted that Perry was in rehab.
Littlefield reflected on producers saying “Matthew has a problem” shortly before “Friends” began filming Season 4.
He agreed to enter a rehabilitation program, and their belief at the time “was that Matthew was injured and he would recover,” Littlefield said.
Perry ‘struggled to deal with his substance use’ while filming ‘Friends’
“Around seasons 5, 6 and 7, we started hearing that he was having a lot of trouble dealing with his substance use while filming ‘Friends,'” Bowick said.
She noted that her brother tried to hide it “so that he would take just enough to make him feel good, but not enough to look high – which was tricky.”
“He would have to deal with his withdrawal symptoms, his tremors and all that,” she added.
Strauss said he began hearing “rumors” that Perry had become “difficult and problematic.”
When they shut down production on Perry’s romantic comedy “Serving Sara” in 2002 so he could attend another rehabilitation program, Bowick recalled that he felt “shame and guilt” because he knew people’s livelihoods “depended” on the production.
“He hated having to do this to people, but he also knew he had to get better,” she said.
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