by Matthew Perry is opening up about the unusual lengths he went to in order to convince ex-girlfriend Julia Roberts to guest star on “Friends.”
In his forthcoming memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry said that Roberts agreed to appear in a 1996 episode of “Friends” titled “The One After the Superbowl: Part 2” only if he could work alongside him. Getting her to fully commit to the role of Susie Moss, Perry’s character Chandler Bing’s childhood classmate, would require a little more persuasion on his part.
“Julia had been offered the post-Super Bowl episode in season 2 and would only do the show if she could be in my story,” the actor recalls in the book, as seen in an excerpt that appeared this weekend in the United Kingdom. The times. “Let me say it again: She would only do the show if she could be in my story. (Was she having a good year or what?) But first, he had to woo her.”
As far as the “courtship” goes, Perry first sent Roberts “three dozen roses” along with a note that read, “The only thing more exciting than the prospect of you doing the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you.” . flowers.”
Still, the “Pretty Woman” star wasn’t completely sold, at least not yet.
“His response was that if I explained quantum physics to him properly, he would agree to be on the show,” Perry said. “Wow. First of all, I’m in an exchange with the woman lipstick was invented for, and now I have to go to the books.”
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So the actor gave himself a crash course and complied with Roberts’ request by submitting a “lengthy and speedily researched paper on wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle and entanglement.” And the result? “Julia not only agreed to do the show, but she also sent me a gift: bagels, lots, lots of bagels,” he said. “Sure why not? It was fucking Julia Roberts.
Roberts was apparently touched by the gesture, and the two actors struck up a friendship that involved much correspondence by fax before filming the episode. When they arrived on the set of “Friends” to film “The One After the Superbowl, Part 2,” they were happily an item.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter last year, “Friends” executive producer Kevin Bright and writer Alexa Junge corroborated the claim in Perry’s science paper. Junge also hinted that Roberts was already interested in Perry “from afar” long before they worked together.
“There was a lot of flirting about sending faxes,” he explained. “She was giving him these questionnaires like, ‘Why should she go out with you?’ And everyone in the writers room helped him explain why. He could do pretty well without us, but there was no question that we were on Matthew’s team and trying to make it happen for him.”
Unfortunately for Perry and Roberts, their romance was short-lived. Elsewhere on “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry said that her own insecurities about dating one of the world’s most revered stars proved to be a major roadblock.
“I had been constantly sure that she was going to break up with me,” he wrote, according to the Times. “Why wouldn’t she? I was not enough; It could never be enough; I was broken, bent, hateful. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts.”
“Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing” will premiere on October 28.
