Perry Posted Peaceful Photo of Himself in Hot Tub Days Ago

The death of Matthew Perry at age 54 has led to a deluge of coverage about his acting career and his well-known struggles with addiction. The New York Times digs out a fitting quote from Perry himself from a 2002 interview: "I was a guy who wanted to become famous," he said. "There was steam coming out of my ears, I wanted to be famous so badly. You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant. I didn't think what the repercussions would be." Perry estimated that he had spent more than half his life in rehab facilities as he tried to kick his addictions to alcohol and drugs. Coverage:

• Couldn't watch: "I was taking 55 Vicodin a day, I weighed 128 pounds, I was on Friends getting watched by 30 million people—and that's why I can't watch the show, 'cause I was brutally thin," Perry told Canada's CBC last year. (The US-born actor spent much of his childhood in Canada.) "I didn't watch the show, and haven't watched the show, because I could go, 'Drinking, opiates, drinking, cocaine,'" he said. "I could tell season by season, by how I looked. That's why I don't wanna watch it, because that's what I see."

• His talent: One reason Perry was so beloved in his prime is because he pulled off the rare feat of getting the tricky art of sarcasm just right, observes Kevin Fallon at the Daily Beast. And that wasn't confined to his portrayal of Chandler Bing on the sitcom. His "nearly four-decade acting career leaves behind a masterclass in the magic of it: its value, its relatability, and its power to do what is paradoxically the most difficult and simplest thing in the world, which is making us laugh."
• Perfect role: Perry wrote in his memoir of landing his iconic role: "It wasn't that I thought I could play Chandler; I was Chandler." The BBC explores this and agrees, recalling how he nailed the audition. "I read the words in an unexpected fashion, hitting emphases that no one else had hit," he told the UK Times last year. "I didn't know it yet, but my way of speaking would filter into the culture across the next few decades." This video compilation includes some of his highlights from the show.
• Aniston: Perry first entered rehab in 1997, amid Friends-mania. As CNN notes, he wrote in his memoir that it was co-star Jennifer Aniston who first confronted him. "I know you're drinking," she told him in his trailer, even though Perry thought he'd been hiding it. "We can smell it,' she said, in a kind of weird but loving way, and the plural 'we' hit me like a sledgehammer," he wrote. His addictions continued long after the show ended, and Perry last year praised Aniston for continuing to check on him regularly and push him to get sober, per People.
• 'Eerie' photo: Perry is believed to have drowned in a hot tub in his Los Angeles home, and no drugs were found at the scene, per the Los Angeles Times. Foul play is not suspected, but the coroner's office has not determined the cause of death. The New York Post writes that Perry posted an "eerie" but peaceful-looking photo of himself in a hot tub, under moonlight, just days ago. "Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good? I'm Mattman," he wrote.

(More Matthew Perry stories.)