Bio
Matthew Perry is a Canadian-American actor best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the television sitcom Friends, a part he played for 10 years over 237 episodes.
He also starred as Ben Donovan in the short-lived sitcom Mr. Sunshine, in 2011; and in the sitcom Go On, since 2012.
Perry was seen in Warner Bros. 17 Again, directed by Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down), with Zac Efron and Michelle Trachtenberg. He was also seen in two independent films, Birds of America, which screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and Numb, which screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
Perry received Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for his starring role in TNT's The Ron Clark Story, the true story of teacher Ron Clark (Perry) who leaves his hometown in North Carolina to teach in one of New York City's worst schools.
Clark's efforts and his students' successes earned him Disney's Teacher of the Year in 2002, and the telefilm was TNT's highest-rated original movie since 2004's The Librarian.
In 2006 Perry returned to series television to star in Aaron Sorkin's NBC drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, in a role that was written for him.
Earlier, in 2005, he took his talents to the athletic arena as he hosted the 2005 ESPY Awards. The broadcast earned the highest rating in the 12-year history of the ESPYs.
In 2004 Perry starred alongside Bruce Willis in the Warner Bros. film The Whole Ten Yards, the sequel to the box office hit The Whole Nine Yards, in which he also appeared. He received critical acclaim once again for his unique talent for physical comedy.
He also received an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Joe Quincy on The West Wing.
That same year Perry made his directorial debut with an episode of the off-beat hit comedy, Scrubs, also guest-starring in the episode in the role of a man willing to donate a kidney to his ailing father (played by his real-life father, John Perry) until complications arise.
Perry's feature film debut was in 1988 in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, starring River Phoenix. In 1999 he starred with Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott and Oliver Platt in Three to Tango.
Other feature film credits include Almost Heroes, with the late Chris Farley and Eugene Levy, Fools Rush In, with Salma Hayek, and Serving Sara, with Elizabeth Hurley.
Perry realised one of his personal challenges when he made his stage debut in London's West End in the spring of 2003 in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He co-starred alongside Minnie Driver, Hank Azaria and Kelly Reilley. The play broke the record for the largest box-office advance for a West End show.
Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Perry was raised in Ottawa, Canada. At 15 he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father, actor John Bennett Perry.
In addition to performing in several high school stage productions, he was an avid tennis player, ranking No. 17 nationally in the junior singles category and No. 3 in the doubles competition.