Lisa Kudrow, who starred alongside Matthew Perry on the hit NBC sitcom “Friends,” is eternally thankful for the time she spent with Perry before his death.
“Shot the pilot, ‘Friends Like Us,’ got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts. Then …
You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that,” Kudrow, 60, captioned a photo of the two together Wednesday on Instagram.
She continued, “Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY. Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of ‘talking.’
“Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then, being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have. Thank you for trusting me.
Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you.”
Kudrow concluded, “Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”
Kudrow, as well as “Friends” cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, released a joint statement Monday about Perry’s passing.
His assistant found him unresponsive in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home. Perry is believed to have drowned, though an official cause of death awaits toxicology results.
“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” read the cast’s statement. “There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.
“In time we will say more, as and when we are able,” the statement continued. “For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”
Kudrow and Perry were so close that she wrote the foreword to Perry’s 2022 addiction memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” calling him “whip smart … charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable and rational.”
She acknowledged in the book that in the 10 years that “Friends” filmed, she “didn’t really try to intervene or confront” Perry about his longtime drug and alcohol addiction.
“The little I knew about addiction was that his sobriety was out of my hands. And yet, I would have periods of wondering if I was wrong for not doing more, doing something,” Kudrow wrote.
“But I did come to understand that this disease relentlessly fed itself and was determined to keep going. So, I just focused on Matthew, who could make me laugh so hard every day, and once a week, laugh so hard I cried and couldn’t breathe.”
In 2020, Kudrow told Jimmy Kimmel about the sweet gift Perry once gave her from the “Friends” set.
“We’re shooting a scene, years before we were finished, and my line was, ‘Oh! I better get going,’ like, ‘Oh! I’m late, I better get going,’ ” Kudrow recalled, explaining that her “Friends” character, Phoebe Buffay, was supposed to check the time as she spoke, but Kudrow didn’t have a watch.
“As the words were coming out, I went, ‘Oh, good, there’s a clock.’ I gestured to that, and said, ‘Oh! Look at the time. I gotta get going.’ And during shooting, Matthew said, ‘Did you look at the cookie jar and say look at the time?’ “
Kudrow said Perry gifted her the cookie jar when the show ended in 2004.
“I think the first thing I asked was, ‘This was so nice — did you get permission?’ I mean, my car used to get searched every night when I left,” Kudrow laughed.
In 2020, Kudrow welcomed Perry to Instagram. He was the last major “Friends” cast member to join the social media platform.
“Finally!!! Yay!! Can’t believe my eyes MY EYES,” Kudrow captioned a throwback photo of the pair, referencing a joke from the show. “Welcome to Instagram @mattyperry4 #friendsforlife.”
Perry’s former “Friends” co-stars remembered him earlier this month at a funeral service at Forest Lawn Church of the Hills in Los Angeles.