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Hank Azaria paid tribute to his good friend Matthew Perry, crediting the Friends star with helping him get sober, in a video shared on Instagram.
“The night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in,” recalled Azaria, who recurred on Friends. “The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together… I got to tell him this, as a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober. And, I really wish he could’ve found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently.”
Azaria recalled the first time he met Perry. Both were actors on the pilot Morning Maggie.
“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles. When I moved there, I was 21; he was 16,” the actor said.
“Matthew and I became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time,” he added. “We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career.”
He recalled that as funny as Perry was on Friends, he was just as funny in real life, “someone who lived to laugh.” He also addressed the actor’s longtime struggle with substance abuse.
RELATED: “The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken”: ‘Friends’ Creators Mourn Matthew Perry
“I really loved him. A lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because — as he documented in his autobiography — there was so much suffering,” he said.
“But it’s heartbreaking, for those of us who loved him and knew him really well, personally,” he added. “We just missed him. We just missed him. It’s one of the terrible things about this disease, is it just takes away the person you love.”
He concluded by saying, “As an actor, he was so brilliant. I just wish we – the world — I and the world — could have gotten what the rest of his career would’ve been.”
You can watch Azaria’s entire tribute below.
Perry was found dead in a hot tub Saturday at his home in Pacific Palisades. A cause has been deferred following an autopsy, pending toxicology tests, according to the Los Angeles County coroner. He was 54.
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