Matthew Perry has a perplexing beef with Keanu Reeves in his new memoir
Matthew Perry's forthcoming memoir has come with its share of revelations, but perhaps the most perplexing is his seeming disdain for Keanu Reeves.
In his new book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which hits shelves Nov. 1, Perry recounts his battles with addiction and the ways in which it intersected with his acting career. And he also apparently has no love lost when it comes to Reeves.
While discussing making his first film, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, Perry waxes poetic about his costar River Phoenix and how working with Phoenix made him fall in love with acting.
This leads to musings on Phoenix's untimely death at age 23 from an overdose with a bizarre caveat. "It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down," Perry writes. "Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?"
Mike Pont/WireImage; Steve Jennings/Getty Matthew Perry and Keanu Reeves
"River was a better actor than me; I was funnier," he continues. "But I certainly held my own in our scenes—no small feat, when I look back decades later. But more important, River just looked at the world in a different way than we all did, and that made him fascinating, and charismatic, and, yes, beautiful, but not in a Gap ad kinda way (though he was that, too)—in a there-is-no-one-else-in-the-world-like-him kind of way."
Perry again calls out Reeves later in the book when discussing making a movie with Chris Farley just before the comedian died (also of an overdose). "Then, Chris Farley died," he writes. "His disease had progressed faster than mine had. (Plus, I had a healthy fear of the word 'heroin,' a fear we did not share.) I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston's dressing groom wall when I found out. Keanu Reeves walks among us."
It's unclear what exactly Perry's issue is with Reeves and why he would, for all intents and purposes, wish death upon him.
Early in his career, Reeves was often derided for his acting, which many critics found to be lacking. Perry is perhaps referencing that here in drawing a gap between the talents of someone like Phoenix or Farley and The Matrix star.
But in the last several years, Reeves has become something of a national treasure, beloved not only for his role in action movies, including Speed, The Matrix, and the John Wick franchise, but also his reputation as an internet boyfriend, earning admirers for his sensitive, kind persona.
Neither Reeves or Perry's representatives immediately responded to EW's request for comment and/or clarification.
But we'd still really like to know why Perry seems to have a such a beef with Reeves. Could he BE any more wrong (or rude?)
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