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On Television |
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MATTHEW PERRY  MATTHEW PERRY...now in NBC's "Go On." |
'Friends' star hopes same lightning will strike again
By DONNA J. PLESH
of TheColumnists.com
Finding success
as an actor is not easy. But sometimes, if an actor is very,
very lucky, he hits the jackpot.
Matthew Perry did just that with his role as Chandler Bing in
the hit NBC comedy series “Friends” that ran on the
network from 1994-2004. Since then Perry has not had much success
in finding that TV series magic again.
For example, he starred in the Aaron Sorkin-created
NBC drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” that lasted
one season. In 2011 he was back in the comedy “Mr. Sunshine”
on ABC. Perry was the creator and star of the series, which was
canceled without a full season run.
This fall Perry is back on NBC in the Tuesday night comedy “Go
On,” playing Ryan King, a widowed sports talk radio host
whose boss has mandated that he attend group grief counseling
sessions before returning to the air.
The series reunites Perry with NBC and with Scott Silveri, who was an executive producer of “Friends.”
In an interview, Perry said there was good news and bad news,
creatively, that he learned from the short-lived “Mr. Sunshine.”
“The bad news for me," Perry explained, "is that Scott created a
TV show for me better than the one I created for myself, so this
show--it’s just better. I gravitate towards sort of broken
characters who try to be better people, and that setup is just
much better here. That guy (his “Sunshine” character)
was sort of in a bad mood and no one really knew why. And
this guy (his “Go On” character) has some very
dramatic things happen to him and he’s in denial when you
meet him. So it’s sort of a built-in excuse to be really
funny.”
Perry said people seem to want a character that he plays to be
nicer. “I don’t know why that is. But you certainly
want to play a guy that people can get behind and root for, and
I think that this character does have that.”
The Ryan King character, Perry says, is loosely based on a few
sports talk personalities. “Rich Eisen, Jim Rome, Colin
Cowherd — who’s sort of an opinionated sports guy on
the radio. So he’s (Ryan King) successful at his
job, but there’s always sort of upward, you know, national
hopes potentially. But in what he’s doing right now he’s
definitely good at his job and successful.”
Producer Silveri stresses that the show will not focus totally
on the counseling group.
“There’s going to be some cross pollination because
these are all characters who are important to Matthew’s
character," says Silveri. "In terms of percentage,
that’s going to shift from week to week. We love the work
world. We love the support group world. We love Matthew’s
Ryan character off on his own."
Others in the cast include Laura Benanti ("The Playboy Club”)
as the grief counselor, and support group members Julie White
(“Transformers”), Tyler James Williams (Chris on “Everybody
Hates Chris”), Suzy Nakamura (“Dodgeball”) and
Brett Gelman (“30 Minutes or Less").
Though this new series is a comedy, it’s not a laugh-a-minute
show; it is more of a subdued comedy. So what does Perry prefer
— comedy or drama?
“I really like doing comedy and I really like doing drama,
and this is a really funny show,” he said.
An interview with Perry would not be complete without a question
about “Friends.” So, what did he learn from that show?
“‘Friends’-- it was just
great chemistry. It had great writing. It had great directing.
And it had really, really great acting. So a little bit of magic
happened there. And you never know when and how that’s going
to happen,” he added.
Meanwhile, Perry is hoping that “Go On” will have that
same kind of magic.
©2012 by Donna J. Plesh. This column first posted Sept. 17, 2012.
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