Lauren Graham, a former Gilmore Girls actress, opened up about her longtime friendship with Matthew Perry, who passed away at the age of 54, months before his death. Graham revealed that Perry gave her a pickleball set in March 2023, a month before his death. Graham also mentioned Perry’s love for tennis and pickleball. The conversation took place on April 5 during a Q&A for her “Did I Tell You?” book tour. Graham added that Perry included a birthday card that read, “Getting older.”
Graham, who appears in a photo with Perry in the book, met the actor while filming the 2008 movie Birds of America. During her Q&A session on the book tour, she explained the dynamics of their long-term friendship. “Even though he was never technically a boyfriend, he was almost part of my life,” Graham said, adding that the actor was “a friend and a constant.”
Graham also noted that the couple had reconnected just months before his death. “We dated for a year, then he came back into my life,” she said, “and he just came back into my life last year.”
Graham and Perry met while filming Birds of America in 2008 and remained friends afterward. She also appeared in an episode of Perry’s series The Odd Couple in 2015. During a fan Q&A for The Odd Couple, Perry previously called the actress “one of my favorite people.” He added at the time, “We have great chemistry when we work together and it’s fun to work with a close friend.”
Graham has spoken about her friendship with Perry before. In an interview with CBS last year, she said, “I’m still in shock. I mean, it’s just a really tragic loss and he leaves behind his beautiful body of work. And that’s something to be grateful for, and the book (Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing) really meant something to him, so it’s been a really happy year for him.” Graham added, “Nobody has made me laugh as much. I mean, just tears streaming. It was just such a joy to be around him and to be his friend.”
Last year, Perry released his memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” in which he reflected on his decades-long battle with addiction. Graham noted that Perry was overjoyed by how well his book was received. “Over the last year, he’s been so proud of the book he wrote and how many people it’s touched,” she said. “It was a success that gave him a level of happiness that I hadn’t seen in him in a long time, so that’s a beautiful reminder.”
Lauren Graham is an American actress and author known for her roles in Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. She has also appeared in films such as Sweet November, Bad Santa, The Babynator, Because I Said So, Evan Almighty, and Max. In 2013, she published her debut novel Someday, Someday, Maybe. In 2016, she reprised her role as Lorelai Gilmore in the Netflix miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and released her memoir titled Talking as Fast as I Can.
In 2000, Graham made her breakthrough role in Gilmore Girls as Lorelai Gilmore, a witty thirtysomething raising her teenage daughter in a small Connecticut town. Graham said she had a real connection to the material and the show’s script appealed to her because of its complexity. For her work, she received a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series (Drama) at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards and nominations at the 2001 and 2002 SAG Awards.
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