If you have ever watched the hit television situation comedy Friends then you know who Matthew Perry is, or at least what he looks like. Chances are that you really don’t know who Matthew Perry is because Matthew Perry was working as an actor long before the show Friends came along. Matthew Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts on August 19, 1969 as the son of actor John Bennett Perry. When he was very young his mother moved him to Ottawa, Ontario in Canada where she took a job as press secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada and Matthew began playing tennis and ice hockey. He became a nationally ranked junior tennis player in Canada until he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father at the age of 15. When Matthew Perry got to Los Angeles he was enrolled in high school and instantly decided that he was much more drawn to acting than tennis. He was ranked 17th in the national junior singles tennis rankings but he had no desire to follow his path as a tennis player. When he graduated from high school Matthew Perry was going to enroll in college at the University of Southern California but when he got the lead role in the television series Second Chance Matthew Perry decided that acting was going to be his career and this was the perfect chance to get that career off the ground.

In 1988 Matthew Perry got a role in the movie A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon and he decided that, adding in his past brief success in television roles, he was on his way as a star and acted like a movie star on the set. Perry was devastated when he was brought back to earth by the subsequent loud flop of the movie and quietly he went back into working on television. In 1994 Perry got the break of his career when he landed the role of Chandler Bing on the new television series Friends. Perry’s own quick wit and sarcastic delivery became a staple of the show quickly and soon the writers of Friends were coming to Perry for material for the show as he displayed a sense of humor that came across well to the large audience that Friends was developing. While Friends was going on Perry decided to try movies again and took a starring role along side Salma Hayek in the 1997 hit comedy Fools Rush In. It wasn’t a runaway hit by any means but the strong box office returns, along with the positive critical response to his performance, gave Perry the confidence to get back on the big screen again.

Perry continued his movie making during the filming of Friends. In 1999 he appeared in Three To Tango and The Whole Nine Yards which turned out to be a comedy hit for both Perry and co-star Bruce Willis. In 2001 Matthew Perry’s job on the show Friends was in jeopardy as a problem with drug addiction had caused him to gain a tremendous amount of weight. His friend, and cast mate, Jennifer Aniston tried to help Perry lose some of the weight he had gained but Perry never lost all of the excess weight and by the time Friends was over in 2004 Perry was still struggling to lose the excess pounds. In 2006 Perry successfully lost his excess weight and got on television again in the show Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Studio 60 lasted 22 episodes and two seasons before it was cancelled in 2007. But Matthew Perry keeps on making movies and you can still catch him taking in the occasional Ottawa Senators game as he follows his favorite professional hockey team.