Minnie Driver Recalls How Matthew Perry 'Made Other People Feel Good' Even When 'His Pain Was Great'

"It felt unbearable, how much he suffered," the actress wrote of how she felt reading Matthew Perry's 2022 memoir 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing'

Minnie Driver is remembering Matthew Perry as someone who lifted others up despite pain he was going through.

The two actors starred together onstage 20 years ago, in a London production of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago.

In a recent essay for The Guardian, Driver, 53, said she'd met Perry, who died in October, before that stage show. They grew closer during their rehearsals for the play, during which time Perry met Driver and her family for lunch.

"The restaurant put us in the back away from people, but when he walked in ... the whole place lit up. The whole place smiled," she wrote.

But the Friends actor also faced "struggles with addiction," as Driver noted, which were chronicled in part in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

"I found it incredibly hard to read and had to put it down and pick it up again — it felt unbearable, how much he suffered," she wrote.

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Related: Matthew Perry's Friends Costars Immediately Saw Him as the One Who 'Keeps Us All in a Good Mood'

Driver went on to recall that the Fools Rush In actor "had been in a good place when we were doing the play, but the thing about him was he was like a light. He was one of those people who just made other people feel good."

"Somehow, they don’t suck you down into their sadness or their pain, and I know now that his pain was great," said the Good Will Hunting actress.

Driver said she and Perry, who later wrote and starred in the play The End of Longing on London's West End in 2016, ran into each other from time to time over the years since Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and that she last saw him during his 2022 book tour.

"It was such a relief hearing him say that by putting all that tough stuff out there, he’d exorcised it in a way," she wrote in her Guardian essay. "I’m incredibly grateful that he got to have the experience of how much people loved that book, and loved him, outside of Friends. Ultimately, it seemed like a positive thing."

Perry died Oct. 28 at his Los Angeles home. He was 54. A spokesperson from the Los Angeles Fire Department told PEOPLE at the time that they'd responded to a call at 4:07 p.m. that cited a “medical emergency.”

Related: Sarah Paulson Calls Late Friend Matthew Perry 'One of the Most Generous People on the Planet'

Last week, an autopsy report revealed the actor died due to acute effects of ketamine. Drowning, coronary artery disease and effects of buprenorphine (a medication used to treat opioid use disorder) were also listed as contributing factors in his death, which was ruled accidental.

Perry was long vocal about his struggle with addiction. In his memoir, he recounted his journey to sobriety — and the pride of staying clean, which he'd reportedly been for 19 months before he died.

“I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side again,” he told PEOPLE at the time for a 2022 cover story. “I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. I was pretty certain that it would help people if I did.”

Driver paid tribute to her former colleague and friend shortly after his death, sharing how "kind" and "funny" the late actor was during their time working together.

"I think you’d finally found peace in your life. I will remember just how much we laughed when we worked together, and how kind and incredibly funny you were," the actress wrote on Instagram at the time, adding, "Rest in peace, rise in glory."

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