Before Tom Selleck guest-starred on Friends, he had a long friendship with Matthew Perry‘s father, John Bennett Perry. That connection made entering the Friends set a much easier thing for the actor, and his time on the Emmy-winning sitcom led to another long friendship with the Chandler Bing actor. The Blue Bloods star is now reflecting on his beloved memories with Perry following the star’s death in October 2023.
Selleck played Richard Burke, Monica’s boyfriend who was two decades her senior and pals with her and Ross’ parents. Monica (Courteney Cox) and Richard dated for a while before realizing their lives were going in different directions. This breakup opened the door for the endgame romance between Monica and Chandler.
“Everybody couldn’t have been nicer to me,” Selleck told USA Today of his time on Friends. “But every day I’d see Matthew, and I’d ask him, ‘How’s your father?’ And he’d always smile and we’d catch up. I got to know his father when I was a young struggling actor. Almost any commercial or pilot I went out on, there was John. We became real good friends.”
Perry died on October 28 at the age of 54. The five-time Emmy nominee died of “acute effects of ketamine,” according to an autopsy report. The report also stated that drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine were also contributing factors in his death.
Selleck remembers Perry as the “most talented” actor in the Friends ensemble.
“He was raw talent. Matthew’s gone, so it’s easy to say this, but it’s true,” Selleck said. “I think he was the most talented of a very talented group of people.”
Perry’s comedic chops are informing this belief. Selleck recalls a Friends episode where he had to act like Chandler and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and the the roommates acted like Richard (Season 2 Episode 20, “The One Where Old Yeller Dies”). Pulling off Chandler’s signature sarcasm wasn’t easy for Selleck; he constantly turned to Perry for notes.
“We had this role reversal thing going, where (Richard) tried to be like them, and them like me,” Selleck shared, noting that the line, “Could that shot be any prettier?” was tricky for him. “Matthew had this speech pattern that I hadn’t been aware of.”
“Matt told me: ‘It’s a joke, Tom. It’s the way he says it.’ But during that whole show, I kept going up to him asking, ‘Can you say it again?’ and he’d do the line,” Selleck added. “That was his signature.”
Perry was so in touch with his humor, Selleck said, that it didn’t take much for him to get the audience roaring with laughter while filming. Selleck recalled the audience’s reaction when LeBlanc and Perry entered the stage in their full Richard gear (LeBlanc had a cigar and Perry donned a Selleck-style mustache).
“(Perry) walked onto the set, and that brought the house down,” Selleck shared. Delivering his next line was easy. “Nice mustache, by the way. When puberty hits, that thing’s really going to kick in,” Richard quips in the episode.
Selleck went on to say that the love between the Friends stars was as real as it gets.
“There are no bad stories. No star stuff. Nothing like that there,” Selleck said. “You’d sit down to get notes on rehearsal, and it was fascinating. Courteney would be sitting on somebody’s lap and then someone else’s the next time. They all just got along. I think it’s because all these actors had failures on other shows. And now they’re in this hit. They all realized how lucky they were.”
Friends, Available now, Max