Netflix’s ‘The One About Matthew Perry’ will be released on Oct. 27, one day before the three-year anniversary of the star’s death
NEED TO KNOW
- In a trailer for Netflix’s documentary series The One About Matthew Perry, Perry’s sister Mia Perry Bowick gives her first interview since the Friends star’s 2023 death
- Friends writer Jeff Strauss and Perry’s longtime friend David Pressman reflect on his humor and impact
- The three-part Netflix series premieres Oct. 27, one day before the third anniversary of Perry’s death
Matthew Perry’s loved ones are sharing new insight into the man behind the laughs.
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Netflix released a new trailer for the upcoming documentary series, The One About Matthew Perry, about the late Friends star’s life and legacy. The clip features snippets of the personal testimonies given by Perry’s close friends and family, as well as words from Perry himself.
“Making people laugh — it’s a world that I want to be involved in,” Perry, in an old interview, says at the beginning of the clip. “I said, ‘God, you can do anything you want to me, just please make me famous.’”
Perry goes on to say that when he got the phone call that he’d booked Friends, which ran from 1994-2004, he “instantly knew my whole life was going to change. But God did not forget the other part.”
Credit: NETFLIX
Throughout his life, Perry was open about his struggles with addiction and said he’d been to rehab 15 times. He died at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023, from the acute effects of ketamine. His death was ruled an accident, with drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine listed as contributing factors.
“I was extremely happy when I got famous, then it’s like, ‘Uh-oh, this didn’t fix what’s inside me. This didn’t do what I thought it was going to do,’” Perry says in the clip. “I had people telling me to stop, saying, ‘You’re going to kill yourself if you keep going like this, and I just didn’t know how.’”
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The documentary will include the first interview with Perry’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, since the actor’s death. In the trailer, Perry Bowick says that her brother “would talk about that feeling of emptiness or loneliness that he couldn’t quite fill.”
“He spent $7 million trying to get sober,” she says. “That’s how seriously he took his disease.”
Elsewhere in the clip, Perry Bowick says that “all great stories have comedy and tragedy in them, and that certainly was Matthew’s story.”
Credit: NETFLIX
Alongside the interview with Perry Bowick, the documentary features never-before-seen photos and videos from the Perry family archive and interviews with several of Perry’s friends, including actor David Pressman.
“I was Matthew’s buddy for 40 years,” Pressman says in the trailer, adding with a laugh that his friend “would definitely want everyone to talk about how great he was.”
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Credit: NETFLIX
Friends writer Jeff Strauss says Perry “meant so much in so many ways,” while Perry’s friend West Huddleston touches on Perry’s drug court advocacy work, saying he knew it was “an area where he could really make a huge difference.”
Through all of the ups and downs, Perry Bowick says one thing that never changed for her brother was that “when he made people laugh, it made him feel good.”
The One About Matthew Perry, a three-part documentary series, premieres on Netflix on Oct. 27, one day before the third anniversary of Perry’s death.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
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