Californian women loved 15-year-old Perry's Canadian accent, his sarcastic humour and his iconic double-takes – and one day, film director William Richert spots Perry 'charming a bunch of young women' in a diner and asks him to be in his next movie.īefore he knows it, Perry is starring in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon alongside the late River Phoenix. (Getty) Is there beef between Matthew Perry and Keanu Reeves? READ MORE: All the brands that have cut ties with Kanye West following his anti-Semitic comments Perry was discovered as an actor at 15, and became close friends with River Phoenix after his first job. Unlike his father, however, Perry is not a high-functioning alcoholic. In Hollywood with his father, who had alcoholism, Perry also began grappling with the disease, drinking six vodka tonics every night, a ritual he declares as the 'best part of day'. 'Why wouldn't I want to pretend to be another person?' he writes. He recalls acting as his passion, saying even when he was at his lowest points, he was thrilled to be the lead in the school play or acting out as the class clown. Moving from tennis to acting was, in part for Perry, due to the extreme Californian heat. (NBCUniversal via Getty Images) Matthew Perry started acting to reconnect with his fatherīy 15, Perry says he was a 'broken human being', and it was at this age he moved from Canada to Hollywood in the hopes of reconnecting with his father – a move that causes a great rift between Perry and his mother.

Fox? Perry, pictured here with the cast of friends, started acting to reconnect with his father. 'I was lying back in the grass and the mud, looking at the moon, surrounded by fresh puke, and … nothing bothered me,' he writes. Perry, however, said he found a sense of peace. One night, as he sipped on the 'sweet, purple, sparkling wine', his friends began throwing up. In his memoir, Perry recalled his first drink – a bottle of Andrès Baby Duck. When Perry was 14, he was a nationally-ranked tennis player in Canada.

Matthew Perry found peace for the first time when he drank as a teen

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