The One About Matthew Perry Is Part Documentary, Part Therapy Session

Mary Robertson hopes Matthew Perry would think her Netflix documentary about him is funny. “I think Matthew would be really upset if I made a film about his life that wasn’t funny,” she says. “It was very important to me that this film be as funny as it could be, and that we find levity in the darkness and in the sorrowful moments. I don’t think that humor diminishes our grief, or our understanding of his struggles.” The One About Matthew Perry, a three-part docuseries, out October 27 on Netflix, is more of a celebration of celebrate Perry’s life instead of a mournful tribute or true crime drama about his death and the headline-making trial that followed. Robertson traces Perry’s life as a child of divorce to a hopeful comedic actor to star of one of the biggest TV shows of all time.

The series interviews two of Perry’s closest friends — industry pal Kevin Pollak, and his sister Mia Perry Bowick, who eventually became a therapist well-versed in addiction in large part because of her big brother’s struggle. “Mia has a line in the film that I adore,” Robertson says. “‘Our job is not to make the feeling go away, but to allow them to sit in the feeling.’ I think about that line every single day of my life now. I try to bring that spirit and idea into my practice as a documentary filmmaker.”

What brought you to this project?
Like hundreds of millions, I am a Matthew Perry fan. I grew up watching Friends. I’m of the age that I grew up watching it as appointment viewing on NBC on Thursdays, when it was part of the monoculture. I remember feeling a deep attachment to the show, but specifically to Matthew and to the sense of warmth and comfort that his performance of Chandler evoked. I think about that word comfort a lot these days because now that I’m able to talk about the film, I hear other people share their stories about appreciating Matthew and so many of them talk about this sense of comfort that they got from Chandler Bing’s character, which I think is pretty interesting, given that the character had these sharp edges at times. He was a sarcastic character, but Matthew infused it with human vulnerability, which fostered this sense of attachment.

When his memoir came out, I read it very quickly. I was moved by his candor and his humor. He begins the book by saying “I should be dead,” and signals almost immediately that he’s not going to hold anything back. After reading the book, I wrote to several folks who were affiliated with its publication, didn’t hear anything back, but never forgot about the power of his words. He was willing to speak openly about being a huge celebrity and struggling with addiction over decades and decades. 

After Matthew passed, I was deeply saddened, but remained interested in excavating the full story of Matthew. It was not immediately in the wake of his passing, but months later, my team and I felt ready to start doing outreach. We wrote some letters and sent some DMs to people close to Matthew. This time was clearly different. I think there was a sense at this moment that, perhaps, some of the people who were close to Matthew were ready. They wanted to shift the focus away from his death and back onto how he lived. 

We pitched the project to Netflix. They understood immediately that this could and should be a film that was loving, and rendered Matthew in a fulsome manner. 

How did his sister join?
We wrote a letter to Mia Perry Bowick, Matthew’s sister, hoping that she would respond. We were skeptical that we would get a response, given that she likely received hundreds of such missives over the decades. Mia did respond. I screamed when her email landed in my inbox and she asked to set up a Zoom. I remember when she hopped on, her wonderful husband David was sitting next to her, and they looked at each other. And they inhaled and exhaled and then looked at me and my colleagues and said, “We’re nervous.” And we inhaled and exhaled and said, “We’re nervous, too.”

Mia’s therapy experience brings so much to the documentary. There’s the same uncomfortable silence in interviews as there are therapy sessions How has doing this project affected your relationship with discomfort and with silences?
That is the best question I’ve ever been asked. I’ve been working in documentary film for over 25 years. The longer I work in it, the more I want my practice to align with the practice of a good therapist. I am not a trained therapist, but I do think that it is of value to give the people who are so generously sharing their stories and their time with me space to sit in their feelings.

Mia has a line in the film that I adore. “Our job is not to make the feeling go away, but to allow them to sit in the feeling.” I think about that line every single day of my life now. I try to bring that spirit and idea into my practice as a documentary filmmaker. What this means, specifically, is not interrupting people and fostering an environment where the person who’s on the other end of the conversation feels as though they can own the space fully and share all that they want to share. 

The great tragedy of Perry’s life, I think, is the gulf between the tidy recovery narrative and the messy, everyday business of staying sober.
I think if Matthew were here today, he would want me to make clear that he saw addiction or substance-use disorder not as a failure of willpower, not as the result of a single circumstance or a collection of circumstances, but as a disease. There’s a clip that we include in the film that has previously gone viral where Matthew confronts Peter Hitchens. In essence, Hitchens tells Matthew that addiction is a failure of willpower and Matthew very forcefully responds that it is a disease, and that the science supports him in this understanding. I think if we hold on to that understanding too, then it’s a lot easier for us to understand why it’s so hard to beat.

Watching this series, you really understand how much Perry wanted to help people. Do you hope this documentary helps people in the same way?
I really hope this documentary helps people. It’s our intention that it helps people. It’s my intention that the film provide balm and entertainment, which is part of how we help people too. I think Matthew would be really upset if I made a film about his life that wasn’t funny. It was very important to me that this film be as funny as it could be, and that we find levity in the darkness and in the sorrowful moments. I don’t think that humor diminishes our grief, or our understanding of his struggles.

When it comes to what I want people to take away, beyond the sense of joy that Matthew wanted to impart to the world, I hope that people understand the size of the monster that was sitting on Matthew’s shoulders. And I hope that through Mia’s incredibly raw, brave testimony, the film is able to provide understanding and hopefully solace to everyone who’s living through an experience that’s similar to hers or similar to her brothers. I would venture to say that almost all of us have loved someone who has struggled with addiction. 

Speaking of those moments of levity, I was surprised to learn so much about his music taste. You include at least one track that was important to him in every episode.
I was totally surprised to learn in the course of making this film that Matthew loved Enya, John Tesh, and “Drops of Jupiter.”

Were there any other tidbits about Matthew’s favorite things that didn’t make it into the doc?
Matthew loved Nestle Quick, I believe. He loved Batman. He loved macaroni and cheese. We do touch on his attachment to Batman in the film, and I think there’s a way in which we can understand Matthew’s life as having some parallels to Batman. There’s ways in which he was incredibly human, and then there’s ways in which he was extraordinarily impactful in the ways that superheroes are. There’s no question that he saved lives. We feature the account of one such person in our film, Tim Harrington, who attributes Matthew directly with saving his life.

Do you have a favorite Friends episode, and do you have a favorite Matthew Perry performance that’s not from Friends?
I think Matthew’s performance in Fools Rush In is really tender. He was pushing himself to exhibit his dramatic range. He’s a romantic lead. There’s vulnerability there that you see in Chandler’s character, but it’s expressed in a deeper way. I’m excited that we were able to include the account of Doug Draizin, who produced the film and was the character upon whom Matthew’s character was based.

Favorite Friends episode…it’s hard. We do feature in the documentary, [“The One With the Blackout”], where Matthew is stuck in the ATM booth with the supermodel Jill Goodacre. It is an incredible performance because Matthew is not speaking. There’s his internal monologue that you hear, but there’s so much of what is communicated is through his physicality. When his internal monologue does come in, it gives you this sense of his deeply held anxieties. He’s playing Chandler Bing at that point in time, but we feature one of the writers from Friends who said that they understood that they were also writing something for Matthew. There was a connection in that scene between what Matthew knew and felt and what Chandler they knew and felt.

I was recently watching a clip of Monica and Chandler posing for engagement photos. The whole joke is that Chandler is really bad at posing for photos. You could write that on the page, and if you asked me to then act that out, it wouldn’t be funny. No one would laugh. But his series of expressions and poses are just riotously funny.

Is it hard to rewatch Fools Rush In, knowing about the jet ski accident that took place on that set introduced him to opiates?
I don’t think it’s hard to watch Fools Rush In, and I think it’s a wonderful performance. Matthew was proud of it. His father in the film is played by his real-life father. Matthew’s relationship with his father was really touching in real life, and I know that working on the movie together was something that they both really savored. I see all the joy and the success, and the yearning and accomplishment, when I look at that film.

I was completely blown away by how relentlessly funny Matthew was in every public appearance. I mean, it is, it is a real gift. Spending time with Matthew through the film and with his friends did nothing, if not desperately make me want to be funnier. Still working on it.