George Clooney Reflects on Matthew Perry's Achievement: 'Success and Wealth' vs True Happiness
George Clooney reflects on his NBC days with Matthew Perry, revealing that despite Perry's success and wealth, it did not bring him happiness
George Clooney has fond memories of being "really close" with the Friends cast, including the late Matthew Perry, during their time on hit NBC shows. "I knew Matt when he was 16 years old. We used to play paddle tennis together," Clooney, 62, shared in an interview with Deadline published on Tuesday, December 19. "He's about 10 years younger than me. And he was a great, funny, funny, funny kid."
Clooney remembered Perry's strong desire to become a regular on a TV show.
"All he would express to us - to me, Richard Kind, and Grant Heslov - was, 'I just want to be on a sitcom, man. I just want to be a regular on a sitcom, and I would be the happiest man on earth.' And he ended up on one of the best ever," Clooney remembered, highlighting that Perry, despite landing a leading role as Chandler Bing on Friends, "wasn't content."
Both ER and Friends were filmed simultaniously on the same NBC soundstage, allowing Clooney and Perry to interact frequently. ER aired from 1994 to 2009 and Friends aired from 1994 to 2004. Clooney even made a surprise appearance on one episode of Friends in 1995.
"It was difficult to watch what Perry was going through," Clooney shared. "We were right next to each other at Warner Brothers, and it was hard to see him go through that without knowing what he was going through. I had no idea he was struggling with addiction and taking 12 Vicodin pills a day. It was really heartbreaking."
Clooney hinted that Perry's story serves as a valuable lesson.
"It also emphasizes that success, money, and all those things don't automatically guarantee happiness," he explained. "You have to find happiness within yourself and in your life."
Mark Wahlberg, Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek, George Clooney & Dylan McDermott, 1998. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc
Perry passed away at the age of 54 on October 28. Police discovered the actor unresponsive in his Los Angeles home's hot tub when responding to a call for a cardiac arrest. His cause of death was initially "deferred" pending a toxicology report. On December 15, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s report revealed that Perry had died from "the acute effects of ketamine."
Before his death, Perry wrote about his use of ketamine "to ease pain and help with depression" in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which was released late last year.
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Perry noted in his book that Ketamine was a widely used street drug in the 1980s, but that now there is a synthetic form of it. He described feeling like he was "dying" during the treatments and compared the experience of taking K to being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel, although he also noted that the hangover was rough and outweighed the positive effects.
