Featured Image Credit: Alamy/HBO Max
Topics: Courteney Cox, Friends, Film and TV
Hannah Smith
Courteney Cox has said she was aware Matthew Perry 'struggled' while filming Friends, after the actor revealed during last year's reunion special that the pressure of the show had taken a toll.
Fans grew concerned for Perry during the highly-anticipated HBO reunion when he told host James Corden that he would 'freak out' if his performance didn't get a good reaction from the audience while taping the show, saying, 'For me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn't laugh.'
Perry is known to have dealt with substance addiction issues while Friends was on air, and his comments sparked worry for fans that threatened to overshadow the reunion.
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Now, in a new interview with the Sunday Times, Cox has revealed her thoughts on how the fame that came with playing Chandler Bing affected her friend and co-star.
'He's just struggled for a while. I think he's doing great now,' she said, adding 'that was a lot of pressure he put on himself. That's a lot to think how much he relied on that for his own self-worth'.
In spite of the mixed reviews that met the reunion, Cox said that she hugely enjoyed the experience of heading back to the old sets.
'It was fantastic to see everybody again, reminisce and realise how much fun we had,' she said, explaining that despite the show having ended almost 20 years ago, she never gets tired of talking about the series.
'That was such a huge part of my life. It was such a lucky situation that I fell into the show, and I went through so many things in those 10 years,' she said.
In the years since, Cox has remained close friends with Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow in particular, and revealed that the trio often meet up at Aniston's home in LA.
'We’re just really comfortable. We’ve shared so much history together and we laugh,' she said. ' It’s adorable. We have deep conversations, we also have silly times.'
Cox also spoke about her own struggles with the aftermath of Friends, saying that she tried for years to keep her appearance the same as it was when she played Monica.
'I tried to chase that [youthfulness] for years, and I didn’t realise that, oh sh*t, I’m actually looking really strange with injections and doing stuff to my face that I would never do now,' she said.
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