Originally appeared on E! Online
George Clooney is giving heartbreaking details on Matthew Perry's life.
Over a month after the Friends actor died at age 54, Clooney shared what Perry was really when the cameras weren't rolling.
"I knew Matt when he was 16 years old," he told Deadline in an interview published Dec. 19. "We used to play paddle tennis together... And he was a great, funny, funny, funny kid."
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While hanging out with actors Richard Kind and Grant Heslov, Perry would tell them, "'I just want to get on a sitcom, man. I just want to get on a regular sitcom and I would be the happiest man on earth,'" according to Clooney.
However, even after Perry landed the role of Chandler Bing on "Friends"—playing the funny pal from 1994 to 2004—he still didn't feel fulfilled.
"He got on probably one of the best ever," the "ER" star noted of the show. "He wasn't happy. It didn't bring him joy or happiness or peace. And watching that go on on the lot—we were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other—it was hard to watch because we didn't know what was going through him. We just knew that he wasn't happy."
Matthew Perry: A Life in Pictures
Clooney, now 62, wasn't aware of the extent of Perry's addiction struggles, which were later chronicled in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
"I had no idea he was doing what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff," Clooney continued. "It also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn't just automatically bring you happiness. You have to be happy with yourself and your life."
The humble message was one Perry also touched on before he died in October of the acute effects of ketamine in what the medical examiner described as a drug and drowning related accident.
"I would like to be remembered as somebody who lived well, loved well, was a seeker," Perry said on the Q with Tom Power podcast last year. "And his paramount thing is that he wants to help people. That's what I want."
