4B the university daily kansan
entertainment
thursday, april 8, 2004
'Friends' star says goodbye, remembers cast
By Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News
KRT Campus
Matthew Perry said he had to fight back the tears when it came time to say goodbye to wiscracking Chandler Bing. "I didn't cry, but I felt like I was about to for seven hours," the Friends star said in an interview.
"There was a sweet moment where my girlfriend (fashion student Rachel Dunn) and I went for a walk on the stage. No one was there. We just held hands and walked around. It was sweet."
Perry — and the rest of the cast — knew what they were leaving behind when TV's No. 1 comedy, several weeks ago, taped its concluding episode, set to air May 6.
"None of us will probably be involved in anything as successful as Friends again," he said. "That's something we just have to deal with.
"We can have big successful movies, but nothing will ever be
that first time again, and nothing will likely span that long a period of time. So we look back, and kind of smile, and move on."
For Perry, moving on starts tomorrow with The Whole Ten Yards, the sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, playing hapless dentist Nicholas (Oz) Oseransky, who has to recruit his former neighbor, Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis), and Jimmy's wife/fellow assassin, Jill (Amanda Peet), to rescue Oz's kidnapped wife.
"And, without the safety net of the show to go back to, 1 guess we'll all be a little more careful picking movies!"
"It's tough to have a movie-star persona when you're on a show as successful as Friends," Perry said. "There was talk the first few years about a curse for us movie-wise. But I don't think any of us will crash and burn now. I think we were very fortunate.
'If I never work again, that's not crashing and burning—that's called already making your mark.
in 2000, Perry's movies—including Fools Rush In, Unsung Heroes and Three to Tango were not successful.
In fact, it was while filming 2002's Serving Sara with Elizabeth Hurley that Perry had a relapse of his addiction to painkillers and wound up in rehab. The actor had spent time at Minnesota's Hazelden clinic in 1997 for a dependency on Vicodin.
Before The Whole Nine Yards
The press reported several relapses — along with an unrelated incident in which he crashed his Porsche into a house in the Hollywood Hills — which he said is over now.
"For me, it was never a question of breaking the law — it was a guy facing his private demons. So I was lucky. People seem to be behind me...The fact that everyone understood helped a lot."
His varying weight over the years was also "part of the struggles I went through," he said, adding: "I'm far away from the hellish parts of all that."
shape — though, contrary to reports. Aniston didn't act as his personal trainer.
"No, she offered to help me dress! I'm a T-shirt and jeans guy, and Jennifer wanted to help me be a better dresser. Not be my trainer — she's got better things to do!"
He still smokes, but is in great
Born in Williamstown, Mass., Perry moved to Ottawa, Canada, as a kid, then got into acting after his first career choice — professional tennis — didn't pan out. He got roles in TV movies (he played Desi Arnaz Jr. in the Patty Duke biopic Call Me Anna) and failed sitcoms, then was the last actor to be cast for Friends in 1994, which ended up with each cast member making $1 million per episode.
"It was a bit like, 'Do we really deserve this?' But without sounding weird, everybody made so much money off the show — the producers, the network — why shouldn't we be a part of it?
"It was as if the six of us were in a sl shotshot, shot into this craziness," he said. "We were thrust into public life, and we told intimate secrets about ourselves before we learned that we don't have to talk about our private life."
Since becoming famous, Perry's been linked with numerous actresses and starlets, though he said many reports were rumors.
One woman he did date was Julia Roberts.
"Yes, some I dated. But most on the girls I was linked to, I never met."
"That was back in '95," he said. "The funny thing about that was, when I was dating Julia, we had camera crews all around outside my house — and when we broke up, they left and followed her!" he said with a laugh.
Now, even though he's excited about his movie career, he still said wistfully he'd do Friends all over again.
"Everybody loved each other so much that, if it was about just being with the cast, I'd be there for another 10 years."
"I was like, 'Wait, I thought I made it.'"
NATION
New Janet Jackson album debuts at No.2
NEW YORK—Janet Jackson is now suffering from a sales malfunction.
Her new album, "Damita Jo," sold approximately 381,000 copies in its first week to debut at No.2 on the charts.Her last album, 2001's "All for You," debuted at No.1 with more than 605,000 copies sold.
Jackson was denied the top spot this time by Usher, who sold 486,000 copies of "Confessions." He debuted at No.1 last week with 1.1 million copies sold.
Jackson, 37, released "Damita Jo" on March 31, about two months after her infamous breast-flashing Super Bowl halftime performance with Justin Timberlake.
Both blamed the incident on
a "wardrobe malfunction," but it drew the ire of the Federal Communications Commission, which launched an investigation.
Since then, Jackson's popularity appears to have faded a bit. The album's first single,"Just A Little While," was a bust at radio and the second,"I Want You," has not gotten much airplay on Top 40 radio stations.
In addition, MTV, which produced the Super Bowl halftime show for fellow Viacom station CBS, did not initially play her new video, though last week they said they would add it to its rotation.
There was plenty of hype surrounding "Damita Jo," including Jackson appearances on "The Late Show" with David Letterman and "Good Morning America."
This weekend, she will be the guest host and performer on "Saturday Night Live."
Trump outsmarts birds in tic-tac-toe challenge
COACHELLA, Calif. — Without any specific strategy, dealmaker Donald Trump battled a live chicken and won $250.
The real estate mogul showed up at his namesake Trump 29 Casino Tuesday and played the Apprentice Chicken Challenge, a tic-tac-toe game with live poultry in a booth pecking its board selections while a gambler makes picks outside the box.
The Donald beat the bird.
Trump dropped in and spent a half-hour answering questions about his hit TV show, NBC's The Apprentice, and his recent stint as host of Saturday Night Live.
He also signed T-shirts and books and humored fans by spouting his catchphrase, "You're fired!"
Songwriter to release two albums in the fall
The British songwriter will release two albums this fall — a rock 'n' roll disc and his first full-length orchestral work, his publicist said yesterday.
NEW YORK — Elvis Costello's split musical personality is showing.
Costello is now recording the rock album with his backup band, the Imposters, in Memphis, Tenn., and Oxford, Miss. It will be released on Lost Highway Records.
The classical album, "Il Sogno," was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The disc will be released on the Deutsche Grammophon label.
LOS ANGELES - An attor
Reporters seek to cover Michael Jackson trial
ney for several news organizations asked a judge yesterday that reporters be allowed to cover court hearings involving the grand jury in the Michael Jackson case.
Attorney Ted Boutrous, representing The Associated Press, did not seek permission for reporters to sit in on proceedings by the grand jury, which began hearing witnesses in the case last week at a sheriff's department location closed to reporters and the public.
But Boutrous said reporters should be allowed to cover hearings related to the grand jury, including one Monday that was closed to the public. Boutrous said the hearing appeared to involve Bradley Miller, a private investigator hired to help Jackson, and noted that Miller's involvement in the case already has been publicly acknowledged.
LOS ANGELES — California lawmakers should work part-time so they can be more productive and less likely to write
The Associated Press
"strange bills," Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said.
"I want to make the Legislature a parttime Legislature," he told The Los Angeles
Schwarzenegger
Times on Tuesday while vacationing in Hawaii. "Spending so much time in Sacramento, without anything to do, then out of that comes strange bills."
The Republican governor did not elaborate on what he meant by strange bills and did not say how he would turn the Legislature into a part-time institution.
Calif. Gov speaks out to public about bills
California's Legislature began a year-round work schedule in 1966.
It is one of three full-time legislatures, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Democratic lawmakers criticized Schwarzenegger's comments. "While I'm out here working...he's pontificating from Hawaii?" said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton.
To illustrate his point, Schwarzenegger borrowed from his acting days, saying filmmakers did their best work on tight deadlines.
"Give them a short period of time. Then good work gets done," he said. "That's when they start getting creative with things."
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