The “Friends” reunion could have been named “the one with the heartbreaking revelation.”
While the majority of the “Friends” reunion special, which has been streaming on HBO Max since May, was a lighthearted look back at the beloved sitcom, a somber moment occurred when Matthew Perry, who played Chandler, shared the emotional turmoil he felt while filming the show.
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Perry told his fellow castmates during a sit-down that he would “go into convulsions” if he didn’t make the audience laugh, something that left Jennifer Aniston surprised, she told TODAY.
“I didn't understand the level of anxiety and self-torture (that) was put on Matthew Perry, if he didn't get that laugh, and the devastation that he felt. Which makes a lot of sense,” she said on Tuesday.
During the reunion, Perry shared that he “felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh. And it's not healthy for sure, but I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn't laugh,” causing him to “freak out.” Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe, responded that he “didn’t tell us that then,” prompting Perry to share that he “felt like that every single night.”
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Despite that, Aniston said that filming “Friends” was “just the greatest time in my life. I've had so many gorgeous times in my life but that was such a specific experience as an act creatively,” noting that it shaped the lives of all the principal actors.
“To have an opportunity to land on people's hearts all over the world, that's kind of incredible, whether it was helping them with grief, mental illness, illness of any kind of disease, learning how to speak English. It's just sort of a very — you can't really explain it,” she said.
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