Tom Selleck remembers 'raw talent' of Matthew Perry

Tom Selleck remembers ‘raw talent’ of Matthew Perry

Tom Selleck thinks the late Matthew Perry was the “most talented” of the ‘Friends’ cast.

The 78-year-old actor appeared in nine episodes of the sitcom from 1995 to 2000 as Richard Burke, the much older love interest of Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) and he’s praised the “raw” ability of the late star, who died last October aged 54.

Tom told USA Today newspaper: “He was raw talent. 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.”

The ‘Blue Bloods’ star – who was unable to attend Matthew’s private memorial service in Los Angeles in October because of filming commitments in New York – found it “fascinating” to witness the bond between the six main cast members on ‘Friends’.

He said: “There are no bad stories. No star stuff. Nothing like that there.

“You’d sit down to get notes on rehearsal, and it was fascinating.

“Courteney would be sitting on somebody’s lap and then someone else’s the next time. They all just got along.

“I think it’s because all these actors had failures on other shows. And now they’re in this hit. They all realised how lucky they were.”

It was the ‘Magnum P.I.’ actor’s own friendship with Matthew’s father, John Bennett Perry, that helped him bond with the cast.

He said: “Everybody couldn’t have been nicer to me.

“But every day I’d see Matthew, and I’d ask him, ‘How’s your father?’ And he’d always smile and we’d catch up. I got to know his father when I was a young struggling actor. Almost any commercial or pilot I went out on, there was John. We became real good friends.”

The show saw Richard slowly begin acting more like Chandler Bing (Perry) and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) as they also adopted his mannerisms, and Tom was grateful to the late actor for helping him with his alter ego’s famed sarcastic delivery on one particular line.

Tom had to say: “Could that shot be any prettier?”

He recalled: “Matthew had this speech pattern that I hadn’t been aware of.

“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. That was his signature.”