Matthew Perry is finally opening up about his personal life. The actor is releasing a memoir where he lets us into his world: the one with a hit TV show, beautiful women, and addiction. At one point, the darker side of celebrity life began to catch up with him, and Perry was soon fighting for his life. When ‘Friends’ started taping ‘The one After The Superbowl’ for their second season, the writers felt they needed to pull celebrity names into the episode.
“He called me up…out of the blue,” Julia Roberts said about Matthew. This was during a 1996 interview on The Late Show With David Letterman. Roberts starred in the episode as Susie Moss, a school friend of Chandler Bing. Chandler and Susie reconnected on a movie set, and she later sought revenge for his prank that landed her the nickname ‘Susie Underpants’.
The double-length episode became iconic for the fans of the sitcom. At the time, Roberts was on her rise to fame. Having starred in ‘Pretty Woman’, ‘Mystic Pizza’, and ‘Steel Magnolias’, Julia was gaining recognition as a talented actress in the film industry. The show runners of ‘Friends’ said that casting her for that role was one of the biggest triumphs of the episode.
According to ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, the episode raked 52.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Super Bowl lead-out show to this day. It’s also the highest-rated Friends episode, including the 2004 series finale. However, the ‘Notting Hill’ star didn’t immediately agree to be in the episode.
In fact, the way Roberts ended up being on the show was not only cute and funny, but it was the start of a romance between her and Perry. “Do you know the story of how we got her? Matthew asked her to be on the show. She wrote back to him, ‘Write me a paper on quantum physics, and I’ll do it,’ executive producer Kevin Bright told the ‘Hollywood Reporter’ magazine. For the continuation watch the video.
