Matthew Perry on Go On: "Friends Was a Magical Thing — No One's Going to Have Anything Like That Again"

Matthew Perry said it plainly: "Friends was a magical thing. No one's going to ever have anything like that again. You try to just search for good proje…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

On October 8, 2012, NBC hosted a press conference call with Matthew Perry ahead of the fall season of Go On , his new single-camera comedy airing Tuesdays at 9:00 pm on NBC. Perry plays Ryan King, a sports radio host who is ordered into a grief support group after the sudden death of his wife. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton was among the journalists on the call. Below are the key highlights from the conversation, including her exchange with Perry.

On how he ended up on a comedy when he was looking for a drama:

I was looking to do a drama and had met all the networks and studios about finding a drama and was sent this. It's obviously a comedy and I could tell by the amount of pages that it was a comedy and I called my manager and said why did you send me this and he said just read it. And I realized that it had all of the elements I was looking for. It was definitely funny, it had a lot of funny characters in it. And it also posed a big dramatic challenge. Plus I had known Scott Silveri — he was on Friends for eight years and he'd written a really great script — so I was in.

On walking the tonal line between grief and comedy:

Nobody knew whether it was going to work. Nobody knew really whether people were going to laugh at these sad situations. But in the third episode we did a comedic run about how hard it is to tell people that my wife has passed away — I said I should just get vanity plates that say it, and then everybody starts pitching on what those vanity plates could say. Like 'dead wife' or 'no mo wife.' That was a really risky scene and people loved it. So then we knew that audiences were going to laugh at this stuff.

On drawing from personal darkness for comedy:

You pull from everything. To be a comedian or somebody who's trying to be funny, you have to have some darkness behind it. That's why some comedians who do dramatic work can do some of the best dramatic work — Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, Tom Hanks. In this show I certainly draw on my past and it helps.

On the 'Friends curse' narrative:

I never really paid any attention to that. I think that was just reporters searching for a story — to suggest that the six of us are like six of the luckiest people on the face of the planet and then suggest there's some curse, I just never really listened to it. Friends was a magical thing. No one's going to ever have anything like that again and you try to just search for good projects.

On Ryan King as an evolved Chandler Bing:

When I read Go On it was almost like this is Chandler like 10 years later if something really bad had happened to him. I like to play people that say things that normally people don't say that they're sort of feeling or thinking but that they wouldn't say. Both Chandler and Ryan King have that aspect. Hopefully both characters look the same, except one looks a little bit older.

On landing Go On and The Good Wife on the same day:

I got Go On and The Good Wife both on the exact same day and it was a great day. I really love doing The Good Wife — it's really fun to play a guy who is just so evil. I like to do both comedy and drama and I got both jobs at once.

On the guest star lineup — Bob Costas, Chris Bosh, Lauren Graham:

Bob Costas calls my character and says he's a fan of the show and wants to give me a tryout for a national TV job. Rich Eisen is also in that episode playing himself as a sort of competitor and adversary. And my friend Lauren Graham plays a character named Amy — an old college buddy of mine where there were sparks back in college. Now that things have changed in his life, Amy comes back. It was the first time Ryan has had any kind of feeling like that in a long, long time.

Premier Guide Miami's Question — Seth MacFarlane and the "Goon" Joke:

What is your opinion of Seth MacFarlane, who made fun of your show by calling it 'Goon' instead of 'Go On' on SNL the other day?

He's hilarious and I didn't actually think he was making fun of the show — he was more making fun of the guy he was playing. It's Seth MacFarlane, so if he doesn't like something, you're really going to know it. I was nervous when I heard that he mentioned the show but quite relieved when I saw what the joke was.

On his favorite actors growing up:

My favorite actor was — is — Michael Keaton. In the movie Night Shift he did something brand new that I hadn't seen before that we all sort of steal from now. And then in 1987 he did Clean and Sober and Beetlejuice in the same year and that was when I said wow, that's what I want to do.

On whether comedy or drama is harder:

I think doing a comedy is potentially more challenging because you're forced to do a joke a page and you're forced to be funny at a certain rate. I'm sure that will surprise most people because most people would think I'd say drama is harder given my experience in comedy. But they both pose their challenges. I actually think doing a comedy is harder than doing a drama.

On the biggest lesson of his career:

To look at it as it's fun and an interesting challenge and a job — and not something to make your entire life and your entire identity about. That's the thing I've learned the most. Parcel of that is to just really have fun doing what you're doing, which I certainly am doing on Go On.

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