Hello everyone
Matthew Perry’s untimely death prompted me to rewatch one of his less well remembered roles.
Perry is, of course, best known as Chandler Bing in Friends, but I would suggest his career highlight was playing Matt Albie in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was created and written by Aaron Sorkin, the creator and screenwriter for The West Wing. It was his first project after The West Wing.
Studio 60 tells the behind-the-scenes story of a weekly live comedy series similar to Saturday Night Live. It is a drama, but with strong elements of comedy—both elements play to Perry’s strength. And it has all the best Sorkin tropes—walking and talking, and plenty of really snappy dialog.
Career Best Role
I think there are many reasons why Matt Albie in Studio 60 was his best role and the one we should look at when he think of Perry as an actor.
Some of those reasons…
Matt Albie
The character of Matt Albie mirrors Perry is many ways.
Like Perry, Albie is talented, intelligent, and charming. Also like Perry, Albie is an addict with his own demons, and while attractive to women, he is unable to sustain a relationship.
In many ways, Albie is the perfect character for Perry to play and he delivers a performance of incredible depth.
Danny Tripp
The second reason why the character of Matt Albie works as well as he does is because of his foil—his business partner/best friend Danny Tripp (played by Bradley Whitford who previously played Josh Lyman in The West Wing ).
The two characters bring the best out of each other and the two actors bring the best out of each other on the screen.
Aaron Sorkin
The third factor making Albie the career best character for Perry is the writing. There are strong characters in engaging situations and the dialog is the sort of dialog that Perry seems born to deliver.
In Retrospect
In suggesting that Matt Albie is Matthew Perry’s career highlight, I cannot not make the comparison with Friends.
To my mind, Friends hasn’t aged well. By contrast—and again, my opinion—Studio 60 has stood the test of time much better.
More significantly, the character of Chandler Bing is two dimensional in comparison to Matt Albie. Adding drama to humor allowed Perry to bring far more gravitas to the screen. And without needing to be over-critical, in Studio 60 Perry worked with better actors which lifted his performance.
Until December
Studio 60 was not renewed for a second season. In some ways this is sad—there was more to be squeezed from this idea: the actors had more to give and I’m sure Aaron Sorkin had more ideas. But by stopping the series so early, it never went stale. Sure, some of the episodes aren’t as strong as the best, but overall it justifies its audience rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
If you haven’t seen Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, search it out. If you like well-made, clever drama you’ll enjoy it, and you’ll love Perry’s performance.
I’ll be back in December.
Until then.
All the best
Simon