LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Friends” star Matthew Perry is an Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic but lovable Chandler Bing is one of TV’s best-known and most quoted characters. However, he died at the age of 54.
The actor was found drowned in his Los Angeles home on Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which first reported the news. Both media outlets cited anonymous sources corroborating Perry’s death.
“Matthew was an incredibly talented actor and an unforgettable member of the Warner Bros. Television Group family,” the company said in a statement. “The impact of his comedic genius has been felt around the world and his legacy will live on in the hearts of many. Today is a heartbreaking day, and we wish to extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. , and sending love to all of his loyal fans.”
Perry’s publicist and other representatives did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Asked to confirm the police response to the location listed as Perry’s home address, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison told The Associated Press that officers were “investigating the death of a man in his 50s.” He said he went to that block.
Perry starred on Friends for 10 seasons and became one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors, starring alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a group of New York friends. Served.
As Chandler, he played a quick-witted, anxious, and neurotic character who is the roommate of LeBlanc’s Joey and the best friend of Schwimmer’s Ross. During the show’s pranks, he was expected to say lines like, “What could be more awkward?” Or another well-timed joke.
Perry has been open about his long public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his million-selling memoir in 2022: Please die. ”
“Friends” aired from 1994 to 2004 and won an Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series in 2002. The cast especially came together in subsequent seasons to earn her $1 million paycheck for each episode.
By the finale of “Friends,” Chandler is married to Monica, played by Cox, and they’re starting a family, ranging from single New Yorkers trying to find their lives to several married and starting families. It reflects the journey of the cast.
The series is one of television’s biggest hits and has found new life on streaming services in recent years, where it has become surprisingly popular with young fans.
In his memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Scary Thing,” Perry describes the first time he read the “Friends” script.
“It was as if someone had been stalking me for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, copying my worldly yet witty outlook on life. One person in particular… As much as the character struck me, it wasn’t that I thought I could “play” Chandler. I was Chandler. ”
It was unknown at the time that Perry had struggled with addiction and a strong desire to please audiences.
“‘Friends’ was so big. I couldn’t risk it. I loved the script. I loved my co-stars. I loved the script. I loved everything about the show. But I was struggling with my own addictions, which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his memoir. “I had a secret that I couldn’t tell anyone.”
“I felt like I would die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s certainly not healthy. But sometimes when I say a line, the audience doesn’t laugh and I end up sweating and sometimes having cramps.” ,” Perry wrote. “If I didn’t get the laughs I was supposed to get, I would panic. I felt that way every night. This pressure got me into a terrible state. About the six people on that show. I also knew one of them, but only one of them was sick.”
In his memoir, he recalled being questioned about Aniston’s drunkenness during filming.
“I know you’ve been drinking,” he recalled her once telling him. “We can smell it,” she says, adding that Perry says, “In some strange but loving way, the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.” Ta”.
In the foreword to Perry’s memoir, Lisa Kudrow described Perry as “very smart, charming, kind, sensitive, and very reasonable and reasonable.” She added: “That guy was fighting everything and he was still there.”
The 2021 HBO Max reunion special was hosted by James Corden, and there was a lot of interest in seeing the cast reunite, but the show was about the actors discussing the show and not a continuation of the characters’ stories. Ta.
Perry received one Emmy nomination for her role on Friends and two more nominations for her role as a deputy White House adviser on The West Wing.
Perry has also had several notable roles, including starring opposite Salma Hayek in the romantic comedy Fool’s Rush In and opposite Bruce Willis in the crime comedy The Whole Nine Yards. I played the role in the movie I was supposed to play.
Although he continued to work consistently after “Friends,” no role ever brought him as much attention or acclaim.
In 2015, he played Oscar in the CBS reboot of “The Odd Couple,” which ran for two seasons. He told the Associated Press that it was a “dream role” to play Oscar Madison, a character originally made famous in Walter Matthau’s 1960s series. He also said he was surprised by how much fun it was to be filmed again in front of a live audience.
“I didn’t realize I really missed it until I actually shot the pilot, and there was a studio audience there, and I realized, ‘Wow, I really like this.’ “This is nice,” he said. “You’re kind of fooling the people in the audience. My performance was never as good as it was when there was an audience.”
Perry was born on August 19, 1969 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father is actor John Bennett Perry, and his mother, Suzanne, is press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and is married to Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison.
