Matthew Perry Quit Leonardo DiCaprio-Jennifer Lawrence-Starring Movie, Don't Look Up, After His Heart Stopped Beating For Five Minutes During Surgery
Matthew Perry dropped out of Don't Look Up after he encountered a near-death experience.
In his memoir, Friends Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry recalls that he was forced to quit the Adam McKay-directed doomsday comedy — where he was cast as a Republican journalist — after his heart stopped beating during his time in rehab for alcohol and drug abuse.
The movie starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as scientists trying to warn the world of an impending extinction-level event.
While at a rehab centre in Switzerland, Perry lied to his doctors and said he had severe stomach pain so they could prescribe him painkillers.
"In fact, I was OK," he writes (via PageSix). "It still felt like I was constantly doing a sit-up — so it was very uncomfortable — but it wasn't pain."
The doctors prescribed him hydrocodone and, before a surgery for the pain, administered propofol, which is used for anesthesia.
"I was given the shot at 11:00 a.m.," Perry says. "I woke up eleven hours later in a different hospital. 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.
"If I hadn’t been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes? Did Friends save my life again?"
Perry added that he suffered eight broken ribs while receiving CPR.
Perry also shared that he was slated to have three scenes with Meryl Streep in Don't Look Up, which he called "the biggest movie I'd gotten ever."
Even though he did film a group scene with Jonah Hill, it didn't make the final cut. "I was on 1,800mg of hydrocodone then, too, but nobody noticed."
Perry previously told The New York Times that he spent US$9 (S$12.7 mil) million to get sober.
In another interview with People, he said "If you don’t have sobriety, you’re going to lose everything that you put in front of it, so my sobriety is right up there.
"I’m an extremely grateful guy. I’m grateful to be alive, that’s for sure. And that gives me the possibility to do anything."
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is out in stores Nov 1.— BANG SHOWBIZ
Photos: TPG News/Click Photos
