Matthew Perry
Birth Name
Matthew Langford Perry
Date of birth (location)
19 August 1969
Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA
After several failed series, this boyish-looking, dark-haired comic performer (who is a master of double takes) achieved small screen stardom as the sardonic Chandler Bing on the hit NBC ensemble comedy "Friends" (1994-2004). Matthew Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, but spent his formative years in Ottawa, Canada where his divorced mother served as press secretary to then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. An accomplished tennis player, he nearly pursued a career as a professional athlete, but he lost an important tournament in 1984 and decided to hang up his racquet for good. That same year, he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father, actor John Bennett Perry, and embark on an acting career.
Although Perry had a couple of guest appearances under his belt, he was "discovered" by director William Richert who spotted Perry at a restaurant while cutting classes. Richert offered the teenager a role opposite River Phoenix in "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon" (lensed in 1986; released 1988). By the time the film was released, Perry had already starred in the short-lived Fox sitcom "Second Chance" (1987) and its revamped, equally unsuccessful version "Boys Will Be Boys" (1988). In both, Perry began to hone his small screen persona of the flippant wisecracker. He further developed this personality as Valerie Bertinelli's brother on "Sydney" (CBS, 1990) and a freeloading reporter in the ABC vehicle "Home Free" (1993). Except for the occasional TV-movie that offered dramatic fare (i.e., playing Desi Arnaz Jr. in the 1990 ABC Patty Duke biopic "Call Me Anna"), the actor worked in comedy. Frustrated by his inability to land a steady TV gig, Perry and pal Andrew Hill Newman began writing scripts, selling a sitcom pilot "Maxwell's House" in 1993 (which was never made) and a feature "Imagining Emily."
Once he found fame as the emotionally immature Chandler on "Friends," Perry, like his sitcom co-stars, attempted to parlay their success to the big screen. And like many of his co-stars, he has yet to find a suitable script that would establish him as a movie star. "Fool Rush In" (1996) teamed Perry with Salma Hayek in a disappointing romantic comedy that was more notable for his real-life father playing his on screen dad than for its uneven style or chemistry between its stars. His next screen lead in "Almost Heroes" (1998), earned respectable reviews for the actor but the film was hampered by a terrible script and the untimely demise of co-star Chris Farley from a drug overdose. Ironically, not long after completing the film, Perry checked himself into a drug treatment center to kick an addiction to prescription painkillers. With a guaranteed stint on NBC through the year 2004, the actor sought challenging film roles during his sit-com hiatus. He co-starred with fellow TV stars Neve Campbell and Dylan McDermott in the triangular romantic comedy "Three to Tango" (1999), playing an advertising copywriter assumed to be homosexual who is asked by his boss to escort the boss' mistress to events. He became the first member of the cast to star in a bona fide box office hit when he co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the popular and well-reviewed mob comedy "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000), playing a nervous, unhappily married dentist whose lives becomes entangled with that of his new neighbor, a notorious mob boss (Willis).
In 2002, after a much publicized stint in a drug rehabilitation center that caused months of shooting delays, Perry completed his role as a process server in the dismal comedy "Serving Sara" (2002), a chemistry-impaired outing with Elizabeth Hurley, before re-upping for the tenth and final season of "Friends." As the clock wound down on the sit-com sensation, Perry tried yet another venture into film with the safe-bet sequel "The Whole Ten Yards" (2004). Also during his tenure on the sitcom, Perry was unafraid to venture into other series in recurring roles, including a turn as attorney Todd Merrick, a potential love interest for "Ally McBeal," in 2002, and as the principled presidential liaison Joe Quincy on "The West Wing" in 2003.
With his days on "Friends" well behind him, Perry settled into life without having to work on a network series. But then "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin approached him with his script for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (NBC, 2006), an insider look at a "Saturday Night Live"-type sketch show, and Perry suddenly found himself pulled back in. This time, however, he joined the ensemble cast of a one-hour drama focusing on the socio-political machinations of a long-running series, a drastic reversal from his ten years on a three-camera sitcom. Perry played Matt Albie, a former writer on the show asked to return and become executive producer when the previous one (Judd Hirsch) is fired after expressing his frustration with the network for bowing down to the FCC and religious groups. "Studio 60" generated the most significant amount of buzz for incoming television shows to the 2006-2007, thanks in part to Perry's return to regular series work.
Meanwhile, Perry earned critical kudos and award recognition for his performance in "The Ron Clark Story" (TNT, 2006), a true story about a white school teacher from the deep south who moves to the inner city in New York and becomes an inspiration to his students despite racial obstacles, eventually earning Clark Disney's Teacher of the Year in 2000. Perry earned himself a Golden Globe Award nod for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.