'100 Xanax worked like charm': Matthew Perry on how pills helped him keep up with Bruce Willis' partying
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA: Matthew Perry, the 'Friends' star, revealed that he bought 100 Xanax pills when he went for the shoot of the film, 'The Whole Nine Yards.' This was to keep up with co-star Bruce Willis with whom he 'desperately' wanted to be friends.
Perry came up with the revelations in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. "Those hundred Xanax worked like a charm," wrote the 53-year-old actor in his book. He also claimed, "So, I'd gotten The Whole Nine Yards and had embarked on a friendship with the most famous movie star on the planet, bit even I knew I was drinking way too much to pull this movie off."
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The actor wrote, "Desperate measures would be needed. Some might be able to party perfectly well and still show up and do the work - but they weren't addicts like I was." Matthew also said, "This way I can drink with Bruce and the others but then when I'm finally alone I can just pop one of these and go to sleep," reported Daily Mail.
The 'Friends' star also stated, "I may have been a man with a plan, but I was also ignoring the fact that this was a completely lethal combination." Perry also explained the partying culture at the set of the film, "At night, the parties raged under Bruce's disco ball in Club Z. Somehow, everyone still managed to show up at 6:00 a.m. for work. I say 'somehow,' but I know how: those hundred Xanax worked like a charm. Though combined with my drinking they did tend to make my head resemble a Spalding Basketball. Meanwhile, Mr. A-list Willis over there looked like he could open an envelope with his chin."
He explained his experience of meeting Bruce. The actor said, "Bruce Willis did not disappoint - he oozed A-list. He didn't just take over a room, he was the room. Bruce laughed at all my dumb jokes - he seemed to enjoy the spectacle of a younger, funny guy paying his due respect and keeping up with his drinking (if only he knew). I was thrilled to be around him because he knew how to live life." He also added, "When the veil of Bruce Willis was removed, I just wanted to be his friend,' he wrote. 'I didn't want to suck up to him like everybody else in the world."
Further, he claimed, "But there was a big difference between Bruce and me. Bruce was a partier; I was an addict. Bruce has an on-off button. He can party like crazy, then get a script like The Sixt Sense and stop partying and nail the movie sober. He doesn't have the gene - he's not an addict."
Perry had previously shared details about his terrifying fight with addiction to 55-Vicodin-a-day, with Diane Sawyer from Good Morning America. "On Sundays, I would go to open houses and go to the bathrooms in the open house and see what pills they had in there and steal them. And I think they thought ‘Well, there's no way that Chandler came in and stole from us.’”
The actor claimed that he faked having headaches in order to obtain the prescription drug Vicodin, believing that he would become ‘very unwell’ without it. “I did all sorts of things - a bunch of doctors, fake migraines, and all that stuff,” he explained. Perry claimed that he had been to a detox facility about 65 times. He also described sliding into a coma and almost escaping ‘death’, in the interview.