It’s been three years since Matthew Perry died of a ketamine overdose at age 54. Now, Netflix will release “The One About Matthew Perry,” a docuseries on Oct. 27 about the actor’s life, career, and relationships—including his bond with the “Friends” cast. The series will shed light for the first time on the actor’s “wrenching and harrowing” funeral, where the cast reunited in grief, according to Page Six.
The series features interviews with Perry’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, and his friends as they recount the comedian’s triumphs, and his long struggle with substance use disorder. In the series, Perry Bowick recounts the “Friends” cast walking into Perry’s funeral, joining hands, and mourning their longtime castmate.
“All five of them walked up to the casket holding hands and stood around him, crying,” Perry Bowick says, according to Page Six.
The cast has long maintained that their close relationship onscreen translated into their real lives—something Perry told Playboy about in a 1999 interview, at the height of his fame as Chandler Bing.
“The answer to the question most often asked, about our being friends in real life, is yes. We all get along really well,” Perry told interviewer David Rensin. He went on to detail a particularly close relationship with Matt LeBlanc, of Joey Tribbiani fame.
“We both call each other Matty. We also call each other some of the sickest, most disgusting and demeaning names, which probably aren’t suitable for a family magazine. Like Slamhole. But we do it in an endearing fashion,” Perry said. “We’re close. When we’re not working, I spend most of my time in his dressing room, hanging out.”
In the dressing room, Perry said they played on LeBlanc’s Nintendo, turning “Mario Kart” into a four-year-long fixation. “[David] Schwimmer’s probably the best at it,” he said, “which is really annoying.”
Aside from his role as Chandler Bing, Perry had two answers for the “Friends” role he’d most like to take on.
First: “Any of the women’s, just so I could stay at home and play with my breasts all day.” Then for real: “I’d most like to play Phoebe, because it seems like the part of her brain that keeps her from saying exactly what she thinks was surgically removed. I love that. You never know what’s going to come out of her mouth. Come to think of it, that’s also why Joey would be fun. Playing off-the-chart stupid is attractive.”
The Netflix docuseries features previously unseen photos and videos of the actor from his family archive, an effort at informing the full picture of Perry’s life.
“It’s taken time for me to feel ready to share these memories and what it was like to love Matthew through all the complexity of his life — to see him as a whole person, not just as Chandler, and not just as someone who struggled with addiction,” his sister, Perry Bowick, told Netflix.
But through it all, Perry Bowick said her brother could elicit a laugh—even at his funeral.
Recalling a moment from the somber day, she says in the docuseries, “He showed up right behind my right shoulder and goes, ‘How fucked up is this?’” Page Six reports. Perry Bowick laughed and agreed. “Yeah man, this is pretty fucked up.”
