The One About Matthew Perry will premiere on Netflix next month

Matthew Perry’s family and friends remember the late actor’s incredible talent, generosity, and long battle with addiction in the poignant new trailer for the upcoming documentary, The One About Matthew Perry. 

The clip opens with a montage of archival footage and interviews with Perry discussing his desire to make people laugh and become famous, as well as the phone call that changed his life when he was offered the role of Chandler Bing on Friends. “I was extremely happy when I got famous,” Perry says in one interview. “Then I was like, ‘Uh-oh, this didn’t fix what’s inside me. This didn’t do what I thought it was gonna do.’”

Immediately after, Perry’s sister, Mia Perry Bowick, adds, “My brother would talk about that feeling of emptiness or loneliness that he couldn’t quite fill. He spent $7 million trying to get sober — that’s how seriously he took his disease.” (Perry died in 2023 from the acute effects of ketamine, which caused him to accidentally drown.)

Bowick is one of several people who speaks on camera for the first time about Perry in the documentary, along with longtime friends Roger Castillo and David Pressman. While none of his Friends costars participated in the film, a few people on the show’s creative team did, as did some of Perry’s collaborators from other projects like The Whole Nine Yards, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and Fools Rush In. 

Along with digging into the actor’s own efforts to get sober, it will also examine how he tried to help others. Two people Perry met in recovery and rehab spoke for the film as well, including Evelyn Sallinger and Tim Harrington, who became Perry’s roommate for a time in the early 2000s and credits the actor with saving his life. 

The One About Matthew Perry was directed by Mary Robertson. It’s set to premiere Oct. 27 on Netflix.