Matthew Perry Opened Up About The Anxiety He Felt “Every Single Night” While Filming “Friends” – BuzzFeed

During the reunion special, Matthew Perry (who, as you probably know, played Chandler Bing in the TV series) opened up about how he felt about filming in front of a live studio audience.

“To me, I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh,” he said. “And it’s not healthy, for sure.”

“But I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and just go into convulsions.”

“If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out.”

After former Friends co-star Lisa Kudrow said that he never told the rest of the cast he felt that way, Perry replied, “I felt like that every single night.”

This isn’t the first time Perry has talked about his personal struggles while filming Friends. He’s been open in the past about having “a big problem with alcohol and pills” at the height of the show’s popularity, and in 2016 he claimed that he “couldn’t remember” filming several seasons of the show due to substance abuse issues.

Something clicked,” he told People back in 2013 about the point in which he decided to embrace sobriety. “You have to want the help.”