Matthew Perry (left) and Tom Selleck in ‘Friends’.Photo:Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Image
Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Image
Tom Sellecknot only consideredMatthew Perrya friend, but he was also among his many fans.
Selleck, 79, reflected on his time with Perry on the set ofFriendsand broke his silence on the late actor for the first time since hissudden deathat age 54 in October.
In an interview withUSA Today, Selleck recalled a scene from an early episode of the hit sitcom where his character, ophthalmologist Richard Burke, was dating Monica (Courteney Cox), and he started a joke with her friends Chandler Bing (Perry) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc).
“We had this role reversal thing going,” Selleck said of the scene, where he “tried to be like” Chandler and Joey while they tried to act like his character.
“Matthew had this speech pattern that I hadn’t been aware of,” he continued, referencing Perry’s sarcastic delivery of his lines that earned his character such fame. Selleck said it took some time for him to master the delivery.
“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?’ and he’d do the line,” Selleck recalled, adding of the iconic delivery, “That was his signature.”
TheBlue Bloodsstar also raved about how talented the late actor was – and how he’d had a front row seat to it.
Thinking back to the same scene, where Chandler and Joey pretend to be Richard and vice versa, Selleck said Perry “walked onto the set, and that brought the house down."
“He was raw talent,” he continued. “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.”
Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Tom Selleck as Dr. Richard Burke in ‘Friends’.Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Image
Selleck reflected fondly on his time onFriendsoverall, crediting the show’s welcoming atmosphere – and his pre-existing friendship with Perry’s father,John Bennett Perry, which provided much of the basis for the relationship that he developed with the sitcom star.
He’d known John since he was a “young struggling actor,” Selleck told the outlet. “We became real good friends.”
“Every day I’d see Matthew, and I’d ask him, ‘How’s your father?’ And he’d always smile and we’d catch up,” Selleck recalled.
He appeared on 10 episodes of the sitcom, between season 2 and 6. He made his final appearance as Dr. Richard Burke in the episode where Chandler and Monica get engaged.
Actor Matthew Perry arrives at the premiere of “Ride” at ArcLight Hollywood on April 28, 2015 in Hollywood, California.Angela Weiss/Getty
Angela Weiss/Getty
Of the star-studded cast, which also includedJennifer Aniston,Lisa KudrowandDavid Schwimmer, he said, “Everybody couldn’t have been nicer to me.”
“There are no bad stories,” Selleck continued. “You’d sit down to get notes on rehearsal, and it was fascinating. Courteney 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 realized how lucky they were.”
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source: people.com
