Why Friends cast WON’T appear in Matthew Perry Netflix doc as family members break silence on star’s tragic death at 54
MATTHEW Perry’s five surviving Friends co-stars will not appear in a new Netflix documentary about the late actor, with the filmmaker behind the series confirming they were approached.
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer are all absent from The One About Matthew Perry, which arrives on Netflix on October 27.
The three-part series drops one day before the third anniversary of the star’s death.
Director Mary Robertson has now addressed their absence, saying the cast remain deeply affected by the loss of their longtime friend and co-star.
“We know the Friends cast loves Matthew and is grieving Matthew,” Robertson told The New York Times.
“We did approach them about participation. They decided not to participate.”
Robertson also told Page Six there were no hard feelings towards the stars, or Perry’s family members who declined to participate.
“I think everyone grieves in their own way. And I understand why someone might feel that this isn’t the moment to talk,” Robertson told the outlet.
A source also previously told Page Six that the stars did not want to publicly revisit their grief over Perry’s death, with Aniston said to have found the prospect particularly difficult.
“She isn’t going to sit down and start crying on camera. She doesn’t want to relive it and have it be so public,” the insider said.
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Further reports suggested that feeling extended across the group rather than there being any objection to the documentary itself.
“It’s still too raw,” an insider told New Idea, which reported that Aniston and Kudrow were still struggling to discuss Perry without becoming emotional.
The source claimed LeBlanc and Schwimmer were also uncomfortable with appearing and said the stars wanted to honor Perry privately, on their own terms and in their own time.
However, the stars have all paid tribute to Matthew since his death and some have spoken about him in interviews.
Aniston told Vanity Fair of losing Perry, “As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better. I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”
Cox also wrote in an Instagram tribute after his death, “I am so grateful for every moment I had with you Matty and I miss you every day,” adding, “He was funny and he was kind.”
While none of Perry’s five main co-stars appear in the documentary, his younger sister Mia Perry Bowick does take part and speaks about her brother on camera for the first time.
Bowick offers several intimate insights into Perry’s relationships, his addiction troubles and his time on Friends, including how much the storyline between his character Chandler Bing and Courteney Cox’s Monica Geller meant to him.
She says her brother had sometimes felt that Schwimmer and Aniston’s Ross and Rachel received more of the spotlight on the beloved show.
Bowick says Perry was therefore thrilled when Chandler’s relationship with Monica developed, giving his character a major emotional storyline of his own to get his teeth into.
“He was not just silly Chandler anymore,” Bowick says in the documentary.
She explains that the romance allowed Perry to move beyond Chandler’s familiar comedy and demonstrate a more tender, romantic and vulnerable side of his acting.
Bowick says the family also understood how much Perry himself longed for the kind of love and family life that Chandler eventually found with Monica.
But her most poignant recollection of the Friends cast comes as she describes seeing them together at Perry’s private funeral.
Bowick says in the documentary that it was a small affair attended by family and close friends and that the five Friends stars entered together.
“I hadn’t seen them in easily 20 years,” Bowick recalls.
She says Aniston was the first of the group to approach her, giving her a huge hug, before the other cast members embraced her.
Bowick then watched as they all walked towards Perry’s casket holding hands and stood around their former co-star crying together.
Bowick also recalls an unexpected moment of laughter during the funeral as Perry was being moved into a mausoleum.
She says she suddenly felt as though her brother was standing behind her shoulder and could imagine him making a joke.
The thought caused her to start laughing during one of the most painful moments of the service, and she says it was the first time since his death that she had strongly felt her brother’s presence.
Robertson told Page Six that Bowick’s account of the funeral was both “wrenching and harrowing”, but said the unexpected laughter was also true to Perry’s personality.
The documentary also features Perry’s close friends and former NBC executive Warren Littlefield who recalled being in the room when Perry auditioned for Chandler.
Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023. He was 54.
His death was ruled accidental, with the acute effects of ketamine listed as the primary cause and drowning among the contributing factors.