George Clooney Says ‘Friends’ Success Didn’t Bring Matthew Perry ‘Happiness or Peace’

George Clooney reminisced about his friendship with Matthew Perry and remarked in a new interview with Deadline that the success of Friends didn’t bring the actor the kind of happiness he expected.

Clooney said he first got to know Perry when he was 16 and still an up-and-coming actor. “We used to play paddle tennis together,” Clooney said, calling him a “great, funny, funny, funny kid.” According to Clooney, Perry would always say his dream was to score a role on a sitcom, stating it would make him “the happiest man on earth.”

Clooney continued: “And he got on probably one of the best ever. He wasn’t happy. It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace.”

There was a lot of overlap between Friends and ER, the hit medical drama that helped launch Clooney’s career: The two shows started the same year (1994), aired the same night (Thursday) on the same network (NBC), and even filmed on soundstages next to each other. Because of that proximity, Clooney said he was able to watch Perry work, and while he wasn’t aware of the specifics of Perry’s addiction struggles at the time, he could tell something was wrong. 

“It was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him,” he said. “We just knew that he wasn’t happy and I had no idea he was doing what, 12 Vicodin a day and all the stuff he talked about, all that heartbreaking stuff. And it also just tells you that success and money and all those things, it doesn’t just automatically bring you happiness. You have to be happy with yourself and your life.”

Perry died in October at the age of 54 in an apparent drowning. A recently released medical examiner’s report said Perry died from the “acute effects of ketamine,” which likely caused the actor to lapse “into unconsciousness” and drown. Coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects were also cited as contributing conditions.