Lisa Kudrow has thanked late co-star Matthew Perry for “the best 10 years a person gets to have” while filming Friends.
The US actress, who played Phoebe Buffay in the hit US sitcom, was the last Friends star to pay tribute to Perry following David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc who all praised him for his “laughter and creativity”.
Sharing a Polaroid photograph of the pair on Instagram, Kudrow said: “Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts. Then…
“You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that.
“Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY.
“Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of ‘talking’.
“Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then, being completely brilliant.
“Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have.”
Kudrow also thanked Perry, who died on October 28 at the age of 54, for trusting her, and “for all I learned about grace and love through knowing you”.
She added: “Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”
Her solo statement marked the last of the Friends stars to honour Perry, following on from Schwimmer and Aniston’s statements on Wednesday.
Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller on the US sitcom, said: “Thank you for ten incredible years of laughter and creativity.
“I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery.
“You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.
“And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers.”
Alongside the tribute, Schwimmer posted a photo of the pair, which he selected as it was one of his “favourite moments” with Perry.
“It makes me smile and grieve at the same time,” he said.
“I imagine you up there, somewhere, in the same white suit, hands in your pockets, looking around — ‘Could there BE any more clouds?'”
While Aniston told her 44.5 million Instagram followers “this one has cut deep”.
She continued: “He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the six of us.
“This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.
“For Matty, he knew he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die.
“His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard.”
Aniston went on to say that she had been looking over their texts to one another in the last couple of weeks, “laughing and crying then laughing again”.
She shared a screenshot of a text that showed Perry had messaged her a black and white photo of the pair together, where Aniston could be seen laughing.
The text from Perry read: “Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day.”
Ending her tribute, Aniston said: “Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. Rest little brother. You always made my day…”
It comes a day after Friends co-stars LeBlanc and Cox also shared their favourite memories with the late actor in separate social media posts.
LeBlanc said “it was an honour to share the stage” with Perry, while Cox said she was “grateful” for every moment she had with the actor.
The five stars gathered for Perry’s funeral service at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park on November 3, according to US reports.
In a joint statement to US publication People, Perry’s fellow co-stars said they were “utterly devastated” and described their relationship as “more than just cast mates. We are a family”.
Los Angeles police had responded to a radio call just after 4pm on October 28 for a death investigation of a male in his 50s, the PA news agency understands.
A statement from Captain Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department to PA said they found a “male unconscious in a stand-alone Jacuzzi”.
