Celebrity
David Schwimmer Pays Tribute To Friends Co-Star Matthew Perry
For 10 seasons, they played college roommates turned brothers-in-law.
In the wake of Matthew Perry’s death on Oct. 28, David Schwimmer honored his Friends co-star with a heartfelt Instagram statement on Nov. 15.
“Thank you for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity,” Schwimmer began. “I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.”
The Family Behind Friends
For 10 seasons on the NBC sitcom, Schwimmer and Perry played Ross and Chandler, former college roommates who become brothers-in-law when the latter married Monica (Courteney Cox) in Season 7.
But their close friendship wasn’t just on screen, of course — as Schwimmer noted, Perry played a major role in bringing the Friends cast together.
“You had heart,” Schwimmer continued in his statement. “Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers.”
A Sweet Memory
For his tribute, Schwimmer selected a photo of Ross and Chandler in flashback 1980s garb from the beloved Season 5 episode, “The One with All the Thanksgivings.” Schwimmer said it was one of his “favorite moments” with his late friend.
“Now it makes me smile and grieve at the same time,” he wrote. “I imagine you up there, somewhere, in the same white suit, hands in your pockets, looking around — ‘Could there BE any more clouds?’”
Schwimmer’s “Generosity Of Spirit”
In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry credited Schwimmer with a “generosity of spirit” that secured the titular friends of Friends an equal deal in behind-the-scenes negotiations.
“David had certainly been in a position to go for the most money, and he didn’t,” Perry wrote, adding that the cast had Schwimmer’s “goodness, and his astute business sense, to thank for what [they] had been offered.”
Remembering Their Late Friend
Schwimmer’s sweet tribute comes weeks after the core Friends cast shared a joint statement to People, in which they said they were “utterly devastated” by Perry’s death, and needed “to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
