Friends Star Courteney Cox Discusses Matthew Perry While Filming

Courteney Cox expresses her thoughts and sympathies on the “self-torture” co-star, Matthew Perry, went through when filming the iconic sitcom.
Courteney Cox, starring cast member of the iconic sitcom, Friends, has commented on her co-star and on-screen husband, Matthew Perry’s, struggles that he faced during the show’s filming, following comments brought up during the cast’s televised reunion on HBO Max last year. The series originally premiered in September 1994 and went on to become a staple in pop culture history over 25 years after its debut, with many feelings the sitcom has some of the best writing on television and created characters that would live on for years to come. After ten seasons, the show concludes in May 2004 with a series finale that was watched by over 50 million viewers.
Friends follows a small group of twenty-something New Yorkers as they navigate life as best friends, dealing with topics such as love, marriage, fights, jobs, children, and heartbreak. Joining Cox and Perry within the all-star, ensemble cast as Monica Gellar and Chandler Bing, respectively, include Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribianni, and David Schwimmer as Ross Gellar. After almost 30 years since the premiere, the cast recently reunited for a special reunion episode where various cast members detailed their time on the show, both good and bad.

In an interview with The Sunday Times (Yahoo! Entertainment), Cox was revealed to have spoken about the comments made by Perry during the reunion, about being too hard on himself when not landing a joke and struggling with alcoholism. Cox expressed her thoughts on her close friend’s situation, sympathizing with him for how much pressure Perry put on himself and everything he needed to rely on. She also remains certain that while he had previously gone through a rough time then, he had since improved on a significant level. Cox said, “That was a lot of pressure he put on himself. That’s a lot to think how much he relied on that for his own self-worth.”
As previously mentioned, Perry revealed several years after the series concluded that he had seriously struggled with both alcohol and drug use throughout the show’s run, to the point of not even being able to remember filming from seasons 3 to 6. The star is also known to have gone into a deep depression, putting far too much pressure on himself and still not believing he was funny or talented enough for the show. However, his co-stars are known to have stepped up for their friend and seemed to heavily support him during their Friends reunion episode.

With Cox’s official words out on the topic, it is easy to see that the bond between each of these cast members was not exclusively onscreen, and that they really are best friends in real life as well. Furthermore, this type of strong friendship can be extremely inspiring to others, showcasing the importance of being there for each other during extremely tough times, as this cast clearly did throughout Perry’s recovery. If audiences would like to relive such a bond, all seasons of Friends are currently available to stream on various streaming services.