The 'Friends' alum writes in his new memoir 'Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing' that he exited the 2021 film because his heart stopped during a stay at a Switzerland treatment center.
- Oct 26, 2022
AceShowbiz - Matthew Perry could have starred in "Don't Look Up" if he hadn't had a medical scare. Revealing that he exited the 2021 film because his heart stopped during a stay at a Switzerland treatment center, the "Friends" alum said it was such a "heartbreaking" decision for him.
The 53-year-old made the revelation in his new memoir called "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing". The actor was on 1,800 milligrams of hydrocodone while he was shooting a group scene with Jonah Hill, according to Rolling Stone. However, the scene didn't make the film's final cut.
Noting that he was given propofol for anesthesia ahead of his surgery, Perry recalled, "I was given the shot at 11:00 A.M... I woke up 11 hours later in a different hospital. He added, "Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes. It wasn't a heart attack - I didn't flatline - but nothing had been beating."
"I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn't want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest," he further recounted. "If I hadn't been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again?"
Though he's grateful that he's still alive now, it was not easy for him to let go of the "biggest movie I'd gotten ever." In the movie, he was set to play a Republican journalist and was supposed to also appear in scenes alongside Meryl Streep.
Directed by Adam McKay, "Don't Look Up" is a satirical sci-fi black comedy film about two low-level astronomers attempting to warn mankind, via a media tour, about an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. Also starring in the movie are Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Timothee Chalamet and Ariana Grande among others.
