Hank Azaria mourns Matthew Perry, credits actor with helping him get sober

1 of 5 | Hank Azaria paid tribute to former “Friends” star Matthew Perry following his death. File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 30 (UPI) — Hank Azaria is mourning Matthew Perry, his longtime friend and fellow actor.

Azaria, an actor best known for his voice work on The Simpsons, paid tribute to Perry in a video Sunday following the former Friends star’s death.

Perry died Saturday at age 54 after being found unresponsive in the hot tub at his home. Perry’s autopsy has been completed but his cause of death has been deferred, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office said Monday.

In a video on Instagram, Azaria recalled how he and Perry first met as young actors on the set of the pilot Morning Maggie.

“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles. When I moved there, I was 21; he was 16,” the actor said.

“Matthew and I became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time,” he added. “We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career.”

Azaria remembered Perry “as the funniest man ever” and someone “who lived to laugh” but also addressed the actor’s longtime struggles with substance abuse.

“I really loved him. A lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because — as he documented in his autobiography — there was so much suffering,” he said.

Azaria credited Perry with helping him get sober, saying Perry brought him to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“I’m a sober guy for 17 years, and I wanna say that, the night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in. The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together,” the actor recalled. “As a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise. And he totally helped me get sober. And I really wish he could’ve, you know, found the — found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently.”

“But it’s heartbreaking, for those of us who loved him and knew him really well, personally,” he added. “We just missed him. We just missed him. It’s one of the terrible things about this disease, is it just takes away the person you love.”

Perry played Chandler Bing on Friends, which had a 10-season run on NBC from 1994 to 2004.

Morgan Fairchild and Maggie Wheeler, who played Chandler’s mom and ex-girlfriend Janice on Friends, were among the other celebrities to honor Perry on social media.

Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry attends the screening of “The Kennedy’s After Camelot” in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 15, 2017. Perry, an actor best known for portraying Chandler on “Friends,” died at the age of 54 on October 28. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo