For countless Friends fans, Matthew Perry has always been so much more than just an actor.
To many of us, he’s been Chandler Bing ⏤ the lovable, relatable, hilarious everyman who can still make us laugh out loud decades after the hit sitcom aired its final episode. He may have lived a tortured life behind the scenes ⏤ as detailed in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing ⏤ but on camera, you’d never know that Perry was anything more than a truly gifted comedian.
This is why it came as such a shock when it was reported that Perry had passed away at the age of 54 at his Los Angeles home on Oct. 28, 2023. Within minutes, Perry was trending on X (formerly known as Twitter) as die-hard fans expressed their heartbreak and paid their respects to a man who felt more like a friend than a stranger. While Chandler Bing will inevitably be the role that he is forever remembered for, Perry appeared in many other movies and TV shows over the course of his dynamic career. Here, in no particular order, are some of the highlights.
Fools Rush In
This romantic comedy starring Perry and Salma Hayek shows what can happen when a night of passion has unexpected consequences. Perry plays Alex, a construction supervisor who learns a few months after a one-night stand with Hayek’s Isabel that she is pregnant with their child. Alex does the sensible thing and immediately proposes to Isabel, but as the two soon find, their varying cultures and customs give “for better or worse” a whole new meaning. The movie doubled its $20 million budget at the box office and while some critics didn’t love it, audiences gave it a pass. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert called it a “sweet, entertaining retread of an ancient formula.”
Numb
This lesser-known indie film made the rounds of the festival circuit and showed off Perry’s range. He’s not bumbling around or screaming, but rather plays a nuanced character going through a difficult ordeal. That ordeal is a personality disorder that makes him feel like he’s in a constant dream state and can’t feel anything. Perry’s screenwriter is desperate to fix his condition so he can marry the girl of his dreams, and while the movie never got a proper theatrical release, it won an audience award at the Gen Art Film Festival.
Go On
Perry received a lot of television opportunity following the success of Friends, and one of those chances was on the show Go On. The comedy sees him play a sports talk show host who has to learn how to move on following the death of his wife ⏤ hence the title ⏤ and features a more mature side of him and a different kind of comedic performance than Friends fans are used to. The ensemble is rounded out by No Hard Feelings‘ Laura Benanti, Star Trek’s John Cho, and Abbott Elementary’s Tyler James Williams.
The Odd Couple
This funny remake ran for three seasons, with the exceptional Thomas Lennon playing Felix as the obsessive-compulsive neat freak to Perry’s slob. The original will always be a classic, but Perry’s version has a breezy, lighthearted feel that makes it perfect for contemporary viewers. Perry executive produced the series and has solid chemistry with Lennon, which makes sense given that they’d previously worked together in 17 Again.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
This one boasts a cavalcade of stars and one of the all-time great television writers in Aaron Sorkin. A biting social commentary of the world of late-night comedy, Sunset features Perry as a writer who takes over for a Saturday Night Live-style show. Unfortunately, this one came out as the same time as 30 Rock, a different show about the same sort of subject. While it beat out 30 Rock in the ratings, it was pretty expensive to produce, so NBC ultimately axed it. It also lost some steam toward the end of the season, but Perry is great in it and it’s maybe his best role outside of Friends.
Friends
Chandler Bing is, and always will be, Perry’s best role. This is the show that made him a bona fide superstar. His “could I be any more (insert thing here)” line was endlessly quotable. His chemistry with Joey is legendary. His romance with Monica is sweet and fun. It’s no surprise why the show ran for 10 seasons, and while he got a little fuzzy in some of the episodes due to what we now know was a severe drug addiction, Perry managed to pull out unforgettable performances regardless.
If you didn’t have the great fortune of living through the ’90s, when new episodes dropped on Thursday nights, it’s hard to describe just how popular and pervasive this show was. It’s arguably the best sitcom of all time, with a pitch-perfect cast that Perry was instrumental in rounding out. There’s a reason we still watch and love the episodes all these years later, and now that Perry has been taken from us way too soon, we’re more thankful than ever to have his catalogue of performances to remember him by.
The Whole Nine Yards
This 2000 crime comedy arrived at the height of Perry’s Friends fame and gave him room to flex his comedic muscles beyond Central Perk. Perry stars as Oz, a mild-mannered dentist who realizes to his horror that his new neighbor (played by Bruce Willis) is a former hitman. Oz’s first plan is to sell out the hitman’s location to the mob, though a bizarre and bloody relationship develops between the two very different men. The Whole Nine Yards isn’t a classic, though we enjoyed it on release and it’s aged surprisingly well. Just avoid the 2004 sequel The Whole Ten Yards.
The Ron Clark Story / The Triumph
The ‘idealistic teacher in a tough school’ subgenre usually follows a tried and tested formula as the lead character learns how to connect with the wayward kids they must educate. That said, Perry makes the otherwise pretty boilerplate The Ron Clark Story extremely watchable. For his lead performance, Perry picked up both Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Best Actor in a TV Movie, with some critics considering this the greatest performance of his entire career.
17 Again
This age-swap comedy is almost like a reverse Big, with Matthew Perry’s sadsack late-30 loser magically tossed back into his teenage body (played by Zac Efron). 17 Again proved to be quite the hit with teen girls who, let’s face it, turned up for Efron rather than Perry. That said, the latter does deliver the basis for the former’s performance, and the two make for an interesting double act of sorts as they embody different ages of the same character. It’s a fun ride, and is actually kinda heartwarming.
Mr. Sunshine
Perry created, wrote, produced and starred in ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine, which centered around a character trying his best to run a second-rate San Francisco sports and events arena. This heavily leans into Perry’s performance as Chandler, and attempts to capture some of the same magic. Cards on the table, Mr. Sunshine is no Friends, but then few shows are. In the end, just nine of the show’s 13 episodes made it to air before it was canceled, with the rest arriving on DVD. It’s an unfair fate for a pretty good show, and we think we’d have seen it improve if it’d got a second season.