Tom Selleck not only considered Matthew Perry a very close friend, but he was also among his many fans. He reflected on his time with Perry on the set of Friends and broke his silence on the late actor for the first time since his sudden demise.
In an interview with USA Today, the actor recalled a scene from an early episode of the hit sitcom. There his character, ophthalmologist Richard Burke, was dating Monica (Courteney Cox), and he started a joke with her friends Chandler Bing (Perry) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc).
“We had this role reversal thing going,” Selleck said of the scene, where he “tried to be like” Chandler (Perry) and Joey while they tried to act like his character. "Matthew had this speech pattern that I hadn't been aware of," he said, referencing Perry’s sarcastic delivery of his lines that earned his character such fame.
The star said it took some time for him to master the delivery just like Perry. "Matt told me: 'It's a joke, Tom. It's the way he says it.' But during that whole show, I kept going up to him asking, 'Can you say it again?' and he'd do the line," Selleck recalled, adding of the iconic delivery, "That was his signature."
Thinking back to the same scene, where both of them pretend to be Richard and vice versa, Selleck said Perry “walked onto the set, and that brought the house down." "The actor was raw talent,” he continued. “Matthew's gone, so it's easy to say this, but it's true. I think he was the most talented of a very talented group of people."
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