“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” It is reported that Ernest Hemingway once said that sentence, but it’s actor Matthew Perry who really opened his veins and figuratively bled all over the page in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and The Big Terrible Thing. It’s a well-written emotional rollercoaster of Perry’s rise in Hollywood and his decades of battle with addiction.
I wasn’t one of those fans of the hit TV show Friends who needed to watch it each week there was a new episode, but I turned into a big fan later. As a matter of fact, I don’t even remember watching it when it was on in real-time. I believe that I caught up on it later in reruns. It’s hard to find an ensemble of young newbie actors who were as talented as these six were and who blended this well together from episode one.
My favorite of the bunch was Matthew Perry’s character Chandler Bing. Honestly, I thought Matthew Perry was the cutest of the guys too. I noticed each season that Perry’s weight fluctuated and I just assumed that he was like many of us who battle with weight issues. (Go and watch the original Odd Couple and the episode where Felix Unger breaks down the word ‘assume.’) Don’t assume.
Unfortunately, we come to learn that his battles were much, much deeper. He even shared in the book that you can tell what addiction problem he was having or if he had been in one of many rehab centers based on his weight that season. It broke my heart that he was going through such a difficult journey while we were enjoying his performances and mimicking the voice he gave to Chandler (“Could he BE any funnier?”).
But be prepared if you’re going to read this book. Yes, Perry talks about how he became one of the most beloved sitcom personalities of all time and the wacky way he got the Friends job and other roles. But the fun stops there and not in a bad way. Perry becomes brutally honest and raw about his struggle with addiction and doesn’t hold back his emotions. He describes going off the handles when trying to get more drugs while in rehab and a moment when he bit into something and all of his top teeth came out (a side effect of all the drugs, I’m sure). When you read how his habit builds up into a 55-pill-a-day habit (I thought it was a typo but wasn’t) you wonder how lucky he is (and we are) that he’s still here.
And Perry doesn’t just limit his emotional journey to his addiction. He talks about his troubles with maintaining relationships — including his very public relationship with Julia Roberts) and how he was so afraid someone would leave him, he left them first. He talked about his parents, whom he loved, but who set the stage for his fear of abandonment.
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It’s weird because I don’t want to rank this one high on my list of favorite memoirs to read because it’s so heartbreaking and, like I said, raw and honest about his battle with addiction. To say I ‘enjoyed’ it would also be weird because I don’t want to enjoy reading about someone else’s pain. Just think about how we all felt when we heard that the Friends cast started making one million dollars per episode — each. The rumblings about how they all had it made and how we felt so jealous of them were heard. But you never know who is going through what in their own personal lives. Perry danced a very delicate dance when he tried to keep his addiction going and keep his acting jobs going. He talks about being high on Friends and extremely hungover on some movie sets. While he was memorizing his lines, he was also trying to figure out what doctor or drug addict could help him and how much time he had before he landed in rehab again.
I’ve enjoyed Perry’s career on Friends (and I actually really enjoyed The Odd Couple remake too), and I also loved many of his movies including 17 Again. If you want to keep your memories and love of Matthew Perry to Chandler Bing, then don’t invest your time reading this memoir. But if you are open to reading about his life on Friends, his journey with addiction, and everything in between, give it a read. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry, but mostly you’ll remember that he is a survivor.
