LOS ANGELES – Matthew Perry, who starred as sarcastic-but-sweet Chandler Bing within the hit sequence “Friends,” has died. He used to be 54.
The Emmy-nominated actor used to be discovered lifeless of an obvious drowning at his Los Angeles house Saturday, in keeping with the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which used to be the primary to record the news. Both retailers cited unnamed resources confirming Perry’s demise.
His publicists and different representatives didn’t instantly reply to messages from The Associated Press in quest of remark. Asked to substantiate police reaction to what used to be indexed as Perry’s house deal with, LAPD Officer Drake Madison informed AP that officials had long past to that block “for a death investigation of a male in his 50s.”
Perry’s 10 seasons on “Friends” made him one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a friend group in New York.
As Chandler, he played the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc’s Joey and a close friend of Schwimmer’s Ross. By the series’ end, Chandler is married to Cox’s Monica and they have a family, reflecting the journey of the core cast from single New Yorkers to married and starting families.
The sequence used to be considered one of tv’s largest hits and has taken on a brand new existence — and located sudden popularity with younger fans — lately on streaming services and products.
“Friends” ran from 1994 until 2004, and the cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salar of $1 million per episode for each.
Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.
“’Friends’ was huge. I couldn’t jeopardize that. I loved the script. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.” “I had a secret and no one could know.”
“I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions,” Perry wrote. “If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.”
An HBO Max reunion special in 2021 was hosted by James Corden and fed into huge interest in seeing the cast together again, although the program consisted of the actors discussing the show and was not a continuation of their characters’ storylines.
Perry received one Emmy nomination for his “Friends” role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on “The West Wing.”
Perry additionally had a number of notable movie roles, starring reverse Salma Hayek within the rom-com “Fools Rush In” and Bruce Willis within the the crime comedy “The Whole Nine Yards.”