Matthew Perry had a cameo in the hit film Don't Look Up, and is revealing as to why it got cut from the final iteration of the movie. The Adam McKay satirical film was one of the most controversial and talked about films of 2021, as it showed extreme versions of either side of the climate debate. In addition to the subject of the film, its star-studded cast of Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep and more made this a film that was always going to impact the masses.
Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the beloved sitcom Friends, was initially among the large and eclectic cast of the film. Perry is a comedic actor who's timing and acting chops would have made him a perfect fit for McKay's end-of-the-world comedy. The cameo was so set in stone that McKay and crew had even gone as far as to film the first part of a scene between Perry and Jonah Hill. It was a role that Perry was over the moon to have landed, stating it would have been his biggest role to date, though the cameo was mysteriously cut.
In a recent reporting by IndieWire, Perry revealed why the cameo he was so excited for ultimately got cut from Don't Look Up. Perry struggled with a long battle with addiction, and shared that it was a health scare that resulted in having eight of his ribs broken that prevented him from finishing the scene that he had started. See what Perry shared below:
It wasn’t a heart attack — I didn’t flatline — but nothing had been beating. I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn’t want the guy from ‘Friends’ dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest. If I hadn’t been on ‘Friends,’ would he have stopped at three minutes? Did ‘Friends’ save my life again?
Perry's Struggle For Sobriety Has Cost Him Millions
Perry's struggles to stay sober during the '90s have since been well documented, but details about his battles continue to come forth. Recently, Perry got into the specifics of his anxieties and addiction, revealing that he has had 15 different trips to rehab, as well as 14 surgeries on his stomach. He also revealed that his journey to sobriety was partly due to this, as those trips to rehab facilities and hospitals were costing him quite a bit of money. He estimates that his path to sobriety alone had cost him something close to $9 million, and that is not even including the costs he had when he was not seeking help. He has had brushes with death in this time, in which he was even put on an ECMO machine, which essentially functioned as Perry's heart and lungs.
It seems that in his struggles, Perry's Don't Look Up cameo was among the least of the things that he could have lost. However, he has survived everything that his journey has thrown at him, and is grateful to be alive, and for fans of the former Friends star, it is great to see him having recovered and willing to share his struggles and experiences in these times. Hopefully, Perry will be in good enough health for him to be able to achieve his goal of being in a big role similar to his cameo in Don't Look Up sometime in the near future.
Source: IndieWire