Playboy's 20Q: Matthew Perry

1

[Q] Playboy: Now that Friends is over, what would you have had Chandler do differently?

[A] Perry: I would have had him rethink the sweater-vests.

2

[Q] Playboy: Listen closely and you can actually hear the ulcers perforating at NBC over the prospect of a Friends-free Thursday night. Can you name all the failed must-see wannabes?

[A] Perry: I'll do my best. There have been about 20 of them. Coupling, of course. Boston Common. And Pig Sty on UPN, which I auditioned for and did not get. Nobody can find the "new Friends" because, for lack of a better word, magic occurred in 1994 when these producers and this cast were put together. It's luck—and timing. Friends was my sixth television show, and I think it was Jennifer Aniston's seventh. Two weeks before I shot Friends I had no money, and I did a pilot called LAX 2194. It was about baggage handlers in the year 2194, and my job on the show was sorting aliens' luggage. Two weeks later I was playing Chandler.

3

[Q] Playboy: You were raised in Canada. What are trips home like for you now? Has anything been named after you?

[A] Perry: Yes, the Toronto Blue Jays are now called the Toronto Perrys. For the most part trips back have an initial kind of strangeness with my buddies, and then 10 minutes later we're right back where we were. My pals don't care that I'm in people's living rooms on TV. I can just hang—and that's nice.

4

[Q] Playboy: So who are funnier, Americans or Canadians?

[A] Perry: I think ordinary, everyday people in Canada are funnier than people in the U.S. Canadians have a certain dry humor. Maybe it's so cold up there that we have to be funny, but everyone, even the bank teller, can make you laugh. That's why we have the Jim Carreys and Mike Myerses and Michael J. Foxes. I think their success has a lot to do with the fact that they're Canadian.

5

[Q] Playboy: You attended a private boys' school in Ottawa. What did you learn there that you wouldn't have learned in public school?

[A] Perry: The desire to have women around, always.

6

[Q] Playboy: Did you get hazed much?

[A] Perry: I was a pretty popular kid, but when I needed a defense mechanism, I had one: If anybody got really mad at me in school, I would just try to make them laugh. I had a little trick—if somebody was coming at me on the sidewalk, I would trip over the curb and the guy would just laugh and walk away. It's a defense mechanism that I'm trying to get away from now, by the way.

7

[Q] Playboy: The show has made you insanely rich. You were in the Forbes top 100 celebrities last year.

[A] Perry: I believe I was actually number 25. I was surprised to see Bruce Springsteen at 26. That was a very surreal moment for me. Britney Spears was number one the year before and then wasn't on the list. That was odd. It suggests how strange the list is.

8

[Q] Playboy: Who can you now get on the phone that you couldn't if you hadn't been on Friends for the past 10 years?

[A] Perry: Short of the president of the United States, just about anyone. If I placed a call to Tom Hanks, it would probably get returned eventually. That's very interesting. I placed a call to Steve Martin a few weeks ago, and he called me back after about 20 minutes. That's not normal. There's a lot of giggling under my blanket about what I'm able to do now, and I have taken advantage of those things. I can say to a group of people, "I want to see the French Open. Let's go to Paris tomorrow." And that's amazing. But in order to stay sane, I have to realize that it's amazing. I realize I won the lottery.

9

[Q] Playboy: You were a top-ranked junior tennis player. Who was your favorite pro?

[A] Perry: Jimmy Connors, my favorite athlete of all time. I love McEnroe, but I was always a Connors guy. I had the same temperament as Connors when I was a kid—and the same bad haircut.

10

[Q] Playboy: Which female tennis players do you like to watch?

[A] Perry: I have to say Jen Capriati, of course, because I'm friends with her, and that changes everything. I mean, there are pictures of me having mental breakdowns while cheering her matches. I was with her seconds after her big semifinals loss at the U.S. Open. I said, "The only way you can handle this is to go into the press conference and make a joke." So when the reporter asked, "How do you feel?" she said, "What do you mean? I won, didn't I?" It's also fun to watch the players who are just beautiful athletes. Jelena Dokic, of course, is great-looking. And it's awfully nice that they wear those outfits for me.

11

[Q] Playboy: What is must-see TV for Matthew Perry? (concluded on page 157)Matthew Perry(continued from page 123)

[A] Perry: SportsCenter. Inside the Actors Studio, because of what I can learn from it. And any of your porn stations. I really don't watch much. I stopped watching Friends a long time ago, just because I was there and I knew what was going on. Sometimes when I see it in syndication it's a nice look back and I remember my Charlotte Rampling hairstyle.

12

[Q] Playboy: What is television doing too much of?

[A] Perry: I think television is getting lazy. Sometimes reality TV is fun to watch—I admit I watched the first Joe Millionaire every week. I had people over to the house. But producers are getting lazy and cheap, and if it continues that way there won't be another Friends or MASH. It's so much more inexpensive to use real people—you whisper to them what to say and then they say it, which is what I believe happens on reality television shows, frankly. I don't buy the "I love you" and "Let's get married" and all this fake craziness.

13

[Q] Playboy: What's the weirdest story line discussed but never used on Friends?

[A] Perry: There was a discussion about Chandler going to a male strip joint every day just because he loved the sandwiches. It's very funny, but that's the one story line I nixed.

14

[Q] Playboy: Besides the added yard, how is the sequel The Whole Ten Yards different from The Whole Nine Yards?

[A] Perry: It has a different style. It's more of a Midnight Run-style movie than the first one. We tried to tap more into the chemistry between Bruce Willis and me. Who knew that this man who saves the world in other movies would be able to pingpong funny stuff with me? The first one was mostly me. I was the pitcher to whoever came up to bat, and this sequel has a lot more of Amanda Peet, Bruce and me. This time we have Kevin Pollak playing an 85-year-old who steals every scene he's in. He made me laugh so many times that we had to cut the camera because I was making involuntary sounds—not all of them oral.

15

[Q] Playboy: Does Amanda reprise her memorable topless scene from the original?

[A] Perry: First, I wasn't allowed on the set that day, which was a terrible experience for me. She didn't want to do the scene in the first place, and I said, "You've got a great role in this despite that scene. And you're going to get a lot of attention, not just from that scene but from the work you do in the movie. Do it." Amanda is one of my favorite people in the world. She is dorky and beautiful and wonderful and talented, with this innate sense of timing that I really respect. So without taking her clothes off this time, she is probably sexier than she was in the first. Amanda, I hope you read this.

16

[Q] Playboy: You're one of the few celebrities we see regularly wearing glasses. Why don't you just get that operation?

[A] Perry: I'm a little wary of laser surgery because of the earthquake that could potentially occur right when it's happening. I'm nearsighted. As I'm sitting here with you I can see you completely clearly. But if you were 20 feet away, you'd look like a black woman.

17

[Q] Playboy: Who will be the first Friends cast member to guest-star on Matt LeBlanc's spin-off?

[A] Perry: I guess the correct answer is whoever is asked first. Oh, probably me. Matty and I are very close, and I support him in all his endeavors.

18

[Q] Playboy: How will Matt let you know that it's his damn show now?

[A] Perry: He won't.

19

[Q] Playboy: What's your post-Friends career nightmare, the one that wakes you in a cold sweat?

[A] Perry: That I won't be able to continue the creative growth that I have experienced as an actor in the past 10 years. I was so inspired watching Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. If that went away all of a sudden and I went, "Wait a minute—carpentry!" that would be a nightmare. To be honest, I don't want to star in any more what I call Love Boat movies—boy meets girl, they have some kind of problem, maybe on the fiesta deck, and then they make up and kiss and the camera pans out to the entire city. I think I've been in three or four of those. On the fourth I was like, "Really? We're going to end this way—again?"

20

[Q] Playboy: It seems every hit TV series is remade as a movie these days. Can you cast the Friends movie for us?

[A] Perry: I think the idea of recasting Friends is absolutely insane. That said, I think Matthew Broderick would be fine as Chandler.