Hank Azaria, the voice behind Homer Simpson, shared a heartfelt tribute to his long-time friend Matthew Perry, who was found dead at his Los Angeles home Saturday, October 28.
Perry, best known as Chandler Bing, shared the screen with Azaria, who played the boyfriend of Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) in five episodes of the long-running sitcom, Friends.
Crediting Perry with his 17 years of sobriety, Azaria shared a touching video, honoring his “really good friend,” who was more like a “brother.”
Keep reading to learn what the Simpsons‘ star said about his pal!
Though Matthew Perry will forever be remembered for his quick-witted humor in his role as Chandler Bing on Friends, Matthew Perry, 54, actually started his career in the 1987 TV series Second Chances and its sequel, Boys will be Boys.
Born in 1969 to a Canadian mother and American father, the actor made his film debut in the 1988 film A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, which also stars the late River Phoenix.
He then had appearances in other TV shows like Growing Pains, Sydney with Valerie Bertinelli, and Beverly Hills, 90210.
His big break came as the sharp-tongued Chandler in Friends, a role he played for 10 seasons of the show’s run, from 1994 to 2004.
His decades-long career includes starring roles in the 1997 romcom Fools Rush In with Salma Hayek, and in 2000 and 2004, he played alongside Bruce Willis in The Whole Nine Yards and its 2004 sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.
On October 28, when Perry was found dead in his jacuzzi, the world was in shock.
Tributes are flooding in for the late actor, including an emotional tribute from one of his co-stars, Hank Azaria, who appeared in five episodes of Friends. Azaria – best known as the voice behind Homer Simpson – played David, the lovestruck boyfriend of Lisa Kudrow’s character, Phoebe.
The friendship shared between Azaria, 59, and Perry dates back almost four decades ago.
“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles, when I moved there. I was 21, he was 16,” Azaria says in the clip, adding that they met while filming a pilot of a show that “never saw the light of day.” He continued, “Matthew and I became really good friends, and we were really more like brothers for a long time. We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career.”
The one where he drank too much
Candid about his toxic relationship of drug and alcohol abuse, Perry admitted that he had been in rehab 15 times.
“I could handle it, kind of,” Perry confessed about his earlier days on Friends, when at 24 he became dependent on substances. “But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble. But there were years that I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the year that I was sober the whole way through. And guess which season I got nominated for best actor? I was like, ‘That should tell me something.’”
Speaking of his decades-long struggle with addiction in his 2022 book, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry explains his journey to freedom from alcohol and opioid use.
“I really loved him. A lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because – as he documented in his autobiography – there was so much suffering,” Azaria – a multiple award winning-actor – said. “I had to pick up and put down that biography, like, 11 times, it was so painful for me to read.”
Perry’s vulnerable memoir is filled with alcohol and drug-induced anecdotes, like a near-death experience in 2018, a coloscopy bag, temporary erectile dysfunction, and being taken to rehab immediately after he married Monica (Courteney Cox) on Friends.
At one point in the prologue, he writes: “Please note: for the next few paragraphs, this book will be a biography rather than a memoir because I was no longer there.”
Expanding on this, Azaria shares that his substance transformed Perry: “…it’s heartbreaking, for those of us who loved him and knew him really well, personally. We just missed him. We just missed him. It’s one of the terrible things about this disease, is it just takes away the person you love.”
Perry claimed he had been sober almost three years before he died.
Next in the tribute, Azaria reflects on his own battles with alcohol, saying it was Perry who helped him get sober.
“I’m a sober guy for 17 years, and I wanna say that, the night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in,” he said. “The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together. He was so caring and giving and wise. And he totally helped me get sober. And I really wish he could’ve, you know, found the – found it in himself to stay with the silver life more consistently.”
The star of Along Came Polly, where he acted alongside another Friends’ star Jenifer Aniston, went on to praise on the comedic “genius.”
“He just lived to laugh and every night he would – he was like a genius. A joke here, a joke there…a crescendo of hilarity.” He continued, “Most nights you spent with Matthew you were crying laughing by the end.”
“As an actor, he was so brilliant. I just wish we could have gotten what the rest of his career would’ve been,” Azaria adds.
What are your favorite memories of Matthew Perry on Friends?
Please share this story and let’s see what others have to say about this brilliant star who will never be forgotten.
Make sure you check out this story on Matthew Perry’s last Instagram post.
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