Friends Star’s Chilly Relationship With Matthew Perry

The way this Friends tidbit came up was a bit surprising: Jumbo mentioned how she had previously interviewed Matthew Perry and asked about Schwimmer’s performance on the show, something she was curious about because they had previously discussed “commedia [dell’arte] and about physical comedy and all this stuff.”

According to Jumbo, Perry responded that his costar was “a linchpin person in a scene,” someone that “people were always looking to…to know physically what direction things should go in.” Perry thought their scenes wouldn’t work at all without Schwimmer being “the pin,” and Schwimmer was “surprised to hear it because Matthew was reserved with me.”

Despite the two Friends stars having a slightly chilly relationship, David Schwimmer still took the praise from the late Matthew Perry with grace and gratitude. He noted that this was a “huge compliment,” one that his costar “would not say” in face-to-face interactions.

After saying “I appreciate that a lot” to Jumbo’s anecdote, Schwimmer turned introspective about what the comments really meant.

David Schwimmer pointed out that “I am one of the few in the cast who had a rigorous theater training,” which is why he believes that anything “involving a stunt or anything physical” has “got to be finely, carefully, choreographed.”

He worked very hard on any of the “physical comedy in a scene,” going so far as to “meticulously structure and choreograph it” so that he didn’t hurt himself or anybody on set.

Furthermore, the Friends star wanted to be able to perfectly pull act of physical comedy off across many different takes, and his commitment and attention to detail seemingly impressed Matthew Perry.

Another reason that the relationship between the two Friends stars being reserved is so surprising is that Schwimmer had nothing but praise for his costar after Matthew Perry died due to ketamine’s acute effects on his body.

Via social media, Schwimmer expressed gratitude toward Perry “for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity” and declared that “I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery.”

He went on to praise Perry’s “heart” and his uncanny ability to “take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.”

Of course, Friends was a funny show, and Matthew Perry was its biggest comedian, so Schwimmer couldn’t resist throwing in a bit of humor that Chandler Bing would have truly appreciated.

After posting a picture of the cast from the episode “The One With All the Thanksgivings” and saying how the photo “makes me smile and grieve at the same time,” he said that he imagined Perry “up there” with his hands in the sit of his familiar jacket.

And he imagined him asking a question that might similarly make fans of the show laugh and cry: “Could there BE any more clouds?'”

While this interview is bittersweet, it is also cathartic for Friends fans who are still in mourning after the shocking death of Matthew Perry.

It was only a few years ago that HBO aired the reunion special that brought the cast back together to talk about their incredible decade of dominating the airwaves with a unique brand of comedy.

Now that Perry’s gone, hearing Schwimmer and others talk about him offers a kind of emotional release, but if we had to title our feelings right now, we’d have to go with “The One Where Everyone Cries.”

Source: Entertainment Weekly