How Matthew Perry's Death Changed Lisa Kudrow's Opinion of 'Friends'
It's been more than two decades since fan-favorite sitcomFriendsended, and nearly three years since the death of Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing on the series, and both have impacted Phoebe Buffay actress Lisa Kudrow's opinion of the hit show.
"After Matthew died I watched the show again," she explained in an April 23 interview with The Times. This time, she felt different about the beloved series, but perhaps not in the way fans might expect. Instead of feeling sad or nostalgic, she felt pride.
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"Before, I only saw what I did wrong or could have done better," she explained. "But for the first time, I truly appreciated just how great it was."
While she finally felt that she "did okay" in her role (an improvement from her prior self-criticism), she was blown away by her costars.
"Jennifer [Aniston] and Courteney [Cox]? Amazing," she said of her pals, who played Rachel Green and Monica Geller. "David [Schwimmer] and Matt [LeBlanc]? They had me laughing so hard," she added, of the show's Ross Geller and Joey Tribbiani. One star, however, really stunned her.
"And then Matthew - he was just beyond us all," she said. "There was a genius at work, and whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again."
Perry was open about his long battle with addiction, revealing that he became dependent on alcohol and prescription opioids after a jet ski accident in the late 1990s, leading to multiple stints in rehab and relapses.
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In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which included a foreword by Kudrow, he said that at one point while filming Friends he was taking dozens of pills a day and even underwent surgeries to counter the negative health effects.
Perry died on Oct. 28, 2023, at age 54. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled his death an accident, caused by the acute effects of ketamine, with contributing factors including "drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine," a drug used to treat opioid use disorder.
Today, Friends is still one of the most beloved shows of all time, and Chandler one of the most beloved characters. When asked why she thinks it still speaks to young people decades later, Kudrow theorized that it "captured a kind of innocence that maybe a younger generation has never got to experience."
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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 8:14 PM.