Jennifer Aniston says she didn't UNDERSTAND the 'Self-Torture' Matthew Perry went through while on 'Friends'
Though Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry have been 'Friends' for over a decade, recently the Morning Show star revealed she learned something new about Matthew while filming HBO's Friends: The Reunion special.
During the reunion Matthew Perry, 51, revealed that he used to “go into convulsions” if the studio audience didn’t laugh at his jokes when they taped the show.
"To me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh,” the actor, who portrayed Chandler Bing, said in the HBO Max special. "And it’s not healthy, for sure." Which left his co-stars shocked, having not known any of Matthew's struggles.
During the special, Lisa Kudrow even stated: "You didn't tell us that then." Now, Jennifer Aniston, 52, has addressed her Friends co-stars distress, stating on the Today show this week: "I didn’t understand the level of anxiety and self-torture [that] was put on Matthew Perry if he didn’t get that laugh, and the devastation that he felt. [But it] makes a lot of sense."
Additionally after the special, some viewers shared their concerns and questions about the status of Perry's health.
Director Ben Winston spoke out against "unkind" comments about the actor, telling Hollywood Reporter's TV's Top 5 podcast, "He was great. People can sometimes just be unkind. I wish they weren’t. I loved working with him. He’s a brilliantly funny man and I thought he had some great one-liners in the show. I felt just happy and lucky to be in his presence and directing him on something like this."