Former Friends guest star Tom Selleck has reflected on working with Matthew Perry in the hit sitcom.
Tom played Monica’s one-time love interest Richard in nine episodes of Friends, working closely with the main cast, including Matthew, who died last year at the age of 54.
In a new interview with USA Today, the Magnum P.I. star was asked about his time on Friends, and remembered one episode where Richard became something of a mentor to the show’s resident boys, leading Chandler to attempt growing a moustache of his own.
“[Matthew] walked onto the set, and that brought the house down,” Tom recalled, revealing he found himself laughing along with the show’s studio audience.
“He was raw talent. Matthew’s gone, so it’s easy to say this, but it’s true. I think he was the most talented of a very talented group of people.”
Tom also shared how Matthew tried to help him out when he had to deliver a line mimicking Chandler’s infamous signature intonation.
He said: “Matthew had this speech pattern that I hadn’t been aware of. Matt told me: ‘It’s a joke, Tom. It’s the way he says it.’ But during that whole show, I kept going up to him asking, ‘Can you say it again?’.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Tom insisted he had “no bad stories” about his time on Friends.
“Nothing like that there,” he said. “You’d sit down to get notes on rehearsal, and it was fascinating. Courteney [Cox] would be sitting on somebody’s lap and then someone else’s the next time. They all just got along.
“I think it’s because all these actors had failures on other shows. And now they’re in this hit. They all realised how lucky they were.”
Matthew died at his home in California in October of last year. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner later ruled that Matthew had died from the “acute effects of ketamine”, with contributing factors to the late actor’s accidental death including drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, a drug used in the treatment of opioid addiction.
Following the news of Matthew’s death, an old interview quickly resurfaced on social media, in which the Emmy nominee said he’d hoped he would be remembered for his work in helping those struggling with addiction, having been candid about his own substance abuse issues throughout his career.
“The best thing about me, bar none, is if someone comes up to me and says, ‘I can’t stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say, ‘yes,’ and follow up and do it. That’s the best thing,” he explained.
“And I’ve said this for a long time — when I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”