George Clooney reflects on his friendship with Matthew Perry

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — There was a time when Matthew Perry’s comedy “Friends” and George Clooney’s drama “ER” were back-to-back on NBC’s Thursday night schedule.

Clooney reflected on those days and Perry’s recent passing in a new interview with Deadline.

Clooney shared that he had known Perry since the “Friends” star was 16 years old.

“We used to play paddle tennis together,” Clooney said. “He’s about 10 years younger than me. And he was a great, funny, funny, funny kid.”

Clooney said Perry let it be known that he just wanted “to get on a regular sitcom” and that would make him “the happiest man on earth.”

“And he got on probably one of the best ever. He wasn’t happy,” Clooney said. “It didn’t bring him joy or happiness or peace. And watching that go on on the lot — we were at Warner Brothers, we were there right next to each other — it was hard to watch because we didn’t know what was going through him.”

Perry detailed his history of substance abuse in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir.”

“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,” Clooney added. “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.”

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