Matthew Perry

 

I met Matthew Perry in the summer of 1995, when Friends had suddenly blown up making its mid-season debut. He was 25; I was 40. I was freelancing for the (Toronto) Globe and Mail’s TV supplement, Broadcast Week. I was at a low point in my career, barely eking out a living as a freelance writer and selling running shoes part-time. Perry was a sudden major Hollywood star. 

I knew about the show but hadn’t been watching it, so, a couple of days before the interview, the editor, Trevor Cole, couriered a box of VHS tapes of Friends episodes to my house for me to watch. Cole made it clear to me that he was not a fan of the show and my assignment was not to interview Perry for a flattering “puff” profile. In true Globe and Mail fashion, the story would go something like “Sure, it’s the Number One show on television, but here’s why we find it irritating.” The interview was to form only a part of the larger, snarky article.

I was not happy about that angle, especially after watching a few episodes and finding myself laughing at the witty, if somewhat convoluted dialogue — particularly the lines delivered by Perry as “Chandler Bing.” (“Have you heard the news?” “The fifth dentist caved and now they’re all recommending Trident?”)

But I was glad for the assignment and the eventual $300 payment.  

The interview was to take place in a room in the hotel built into the domed stadium where the American League Blue Jays play. I got downtown early and sat in my car in the underground parking garage reading the cover story about Friends in the latest Rolling Stone magazine. I had crammed the names of all the cast members and their characters and hoped I would not appear unprepared. I was nervous. This guy was rich and famous, and yet I knew little about him, except that his mother was once Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary, his step father was NBC News anchor and former CTV news anchor Keith Morrison, and his biological father used to play the bearded seafarer in the Old Spice commercials.

Perry’s hotel room had a main floor sitting room and an upstairs loft as the bedroom and, like all the rooms at the SkyDome Hotel, a floor-to-ceiling window looking onto the baseball field. I was introduced to Perry by a publicist with a clipboard. Perry stood tall and dignified and I remember he was wearing a preppy-style blue blazer. His face bore a half-smile that seemed to be carved into him in the form of a permanent smirk. He shook my hand warmly and smiled as if he was genuinely happy to meet me. After the publicist left he turned toward the baseball field and told me he had watched last night’s Jays game. 

Now, the field was a dormant, bland, industrial space. Sections of artificial turf were rolled up like carpet and maintenance people strolled around carrying tools. A Zamboni-like riding tractor groomed the outfield. Through the window you could hear the empty, cavernous echo of utility fans. 

Perry told me he had met the team the night before. He reached into his pocket and showed me the game ball manager Cito Gaston had given him after the game, autographed by all the players. He was really proud of it and anxious to show me. He was a fan, delighted to have met these big-league heroes in the flesh, not yet fully grasping the reality of his own fame. The Jays had won their second World Series less than two years ago, and Perry told me that the vanity plates on the Porsche 911 he drove around L.A. read “JAYS 93.” 

There was a small couch against the side wall, a couple of chairs facing it and a coffee table in between. He sat on the couch and I took one of the chairs.

“Hey, instead of always facing each other, why don’t we try sitting side by side,” he said.

Why not? I thought. Why be a stickler? I’ll go along. So, I sat beside him. A mistake, as it put me in the awkward position of having to turn my head to the right 90 degrees in order to address him. I arranged my tape recorder and my note pad on the coffee table and held my list of questions in my hand. Perry asked if those were my interview questions. Then he grabbed the sheet out of my hand and began reading them. “How about if I just pick the questions I want to answer, and —"

“Um, I don’t think so,” I said, taking back the page.” 

It would have been a funny twist, and Perry might have respected my willingness to flaut formality, but I couldn’t risk losing control of this interview. This wasn’t a game. 

At one point during the interview, he said, with ironic emphasis: “You might as well go ahead and ask THE QUESTION.” 

“What question?”

“You know,” he said. “The one they always ask me.”

I looked at him for a few seconds.

He said, “‘Are the cast members all really friends?’”

What a dumb question, I thought. 

“We don’t ask that question,” I said, with mock seriousness. “We’re the Globe and Mail.”

He laughed. What a relief, and a thrill for me. Only a Canadian would have got that joke. I had made Matthew Perry laugh. 

When the interview was over, I packed up my briefcase, shook Perry’s hand, thanked him and went for the door. He stood there in the doorway, alone, in the two-story luxury room, clutching his autographed baseball, awaiting his next interview; about to face the wild ride that lay ahead of him, of which Friends was only the beginning. And when the door closed behind me and I walked down the hall, I had the illusion that, under different circumstances, we might have been ... friends.