In an obituary published by British daily The Guardian, Minnie Driver recalled some of the good times with Matthew Perry, whom she acted alongside in a 2003 production of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago.
“He had been in a good place when we were doing the play, but the thing about him was he was like a light,” Driver wrote. “He was one of those people who just made other people feel good. Somehow, they don’t suck you down into their sadness, or their pain, and I know now that his pain was great.”
She continued, “Matthew was one of the quickest people you would ever come across, ruthlessly funny in the ways he’d react to people. He wouldn’t let you get away with anything. Invariably, I would tell really long stories and he’d always do this brilliantly timed bit where he’d nod off in the middle — so funny — but he wasn’t mean in any way. He was the most self-deprecating person and really kind. Anyone who asked him for help, he would help.”
The fame wrought by the explosive popularity of TV’s Friends sometimes overshadowed Perry’s genuine acting talents.
“Matthew, we mustn’t forget, was a very good actor,” she wrote. “I recently looked at the reviews for our play — and his were all really good, apart from one. I remember his reaction to it: ‘Some people only want Chandler, and I don’t know that I’m allowed to be anything other than that.’ That character was going to be iconic and beloved forever, but clearly, there was so much more to him.”
The struggle to define himself beyond Friends was something that may have exacerbated his addictions, Driver said.
“It was a pretty tight yoke. Part of Matthew’s inner struggle was that he was so closely identified with a role that was also beloved to him — one that he was so good at. But it also held him in a specific place, so it felt like a tug of war. I also think if you struggle with addiction and you have this extraordinary, rarefied life where people love you so completely, it’s always difficult to come to terms with the possibility of your fallibility.”
Driver found Perry’s brutally honest 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing hard to read. “I last saw him on his book tour last year. It was such a relief hearing him say that by putting all that tough stuff out there, he’d exorcised it in a way,” she said. “I’m incredibly grateful that he got to have the experience of how much people loved that book, and loved him, outside of Friends. Ultimately, it seemed like a positive thing.”
Perry died Oct. 28 at 54 from what the medical office termed an “acute effects of ketamine.”