Lisa Kudrow is sharing fond memories of her late Friends costar, Matthew Perry. In a touching tribute on Wednesday, she recalled highlights of their longtime companionship, starting with their work on the beloved hit sitcom.
“Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC upfronts,” Kudrow wrote, referencing the show’s original title. “Then… You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that.”
The actress, who spent a decade on screen with Perry, went on to express immense gratitude for the influence he had in her life.
“Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said that my muscles ached and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY,” she wrote. “Thank you for your open heart in a six-way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of ‘talking.’ Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have.”
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After paying respect to Perry for his trust, grace, and love, Kudrow concluded her post, “Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”
FRIENDS — “The One Where Everybody Finds Out” Episode 14 — Air Date 02/11/1999 — Pictured: (l-r) Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay
Kudrow joined her Friends her costars Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, and Matt LeBlanc in a joint statement addressing Perry’s death soon after the news. “We were more than just castmates,” the actors wrote of their longtime friendship. “We are a family. There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
The entire group has since mourned the actor in individual posts, reflecting on their time together with kind words and throwbacks to their years sharing the screen.
In her own Instagram post earlier this week, Cox, who played Perry’s character Chandler’s love interest Monica, wrote that she was “so grateful for every moment I had with you, Matty, and I miss you every day.”
LeBlanc shared a carousel of images featuring his Friends character, Joey, and Chandler, writing, “The times we had together are honestly among the favorite times of my life.”
Schwimmer also remembered the actor on social media, thanking him for “10 incredible years of laughter and creativity.”
Expressing her devastating loss, Aniston said of the cast, “We were always the six of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.”
Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow
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The tribute posts come two and a half weeks after Perry was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles and pronounced dead at the scene. He was 54. Foul play is not suspected, though authorities have said it will take time to determine his cause of death.Known for playing the lovably sarcastic Chandler Bing across the 10-year run of Friends, Perry was a five-time Emmy nominee whose other screen credits included The West Wing, The Odd Couple, The Whole Nine Yards, Fools Rush In, and 17 Again. He was also an outspoken advocate on the subject of addiction, which he personally struggled with for years and wrote about in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. He turned his former Malibu home into a sober-living facility called the Perry House, which was open until 2015.
