George Clooney Says Late Friend Matthew Perry “Wasn’t Happy” Despite “Friends” Success

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George Clooney is remembering his longtime friend Matthew Perry. In a lengthy Q&A with Deadline to promote his new film The Boys In the Boat, the actor, director, and producer recalled growing up with Perry, making it big in the industry at the same time, and watching Perry’s heartbreaking downfall.

“I knew Matt when he was 16 years old. We used to play paddle tennis together. He’s about 10 years younger than me. And he was a great, funny, funny, funny kid,” Clooney said. “He was a kid and all he would say to us—I mean me, Richard Kind, and Grant Heslov—was, ‘I just want to get on a sitcom, man. I just want to get on a regular sitcom, and I would be the happiest man on earth.’ And he got on probably one of the best ever.”

In 1994, both Clooney’s ER and Perry’s Friends debuted, shooting the young actors into fame. (Next year, the cult-classic shows will turn 30.) “We were side by side on the soundstage,” Clooney recalled.

But Clooney said that despite getting to live his dream with Friends, it was not enough to make Perry content. “He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace,” Clooney said of his late friend.

Perry struggled with drugs and alcohol for most of his adult life, and on October 28, he died in his home, having succumbed to the “acute effects” of ketamine, according to a toxicology report from the County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner. While Perry was unable to live a sober life, he worked hard to help others overcome addiction, and after his passing, his Matthew Perry Foundation, to fight addiction, was launched.

“We were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other—it was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him,” Clooney said. “We just knew that he wasn’t happy and I had no idea he was doing, what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff.” Perry revealed some of these details in his 2022 book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

Clooney added: “And it also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn’t just automatically bring you happiness. You have to be happy with yourself and your life.”

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