Matthew Perry is taking a look back at filming the romantic comedy, “Fools Rush In,” with Salma Hayek.
According to Entertainment Weekly, in his upcoming memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” the actor detailed shooting the 1997 film, which was his first major movie.
“Fools Rush In,” which was directed by Andy Tennant, follows Alex (Perry) and Hayek (Isabel) who have a one-night stand that results in Isabel getting pregnant. The couple then decides to get married, and their relationship is tested due to their cultural differences.
Perry spoke about his experience working with Hayek in his memoir, describing her acting advice as “nonsense.”
Perry — who already had a couple of seasons of “Friends” under his belt — said he created “some fun strategies to tap into real feelings and to be more of a leading man than a funny sitcom actor” before shooting “Fools Rush In.”
He noted that Hayek had some suggestions as well.
“Salma had tried her best, too — she came into my trailer at the start of the shoot and said, ‘Let’s just spoon a little bit,'” Perry wrote. “I did my best Chandler impression — the double-take-and-sardonic- stare thing — and said, ‘Oh, OK ! Let’s just spoon a little bit!'”
While Perry said Hayek always had a “very elaborate and lengthy idea” on how to approach a scene, he recalled feeling that “her long-winded ideas weren’t always helpful.”
“There’s one scene in which I’m professing my love for her,” Perry recalled. “She suggested that we don’t look at each other — rather, we should look out at our future together. After listening to this nonsense for about twenty minutes, I finally said: ‘Listen, Salma,’ I said, ‘I’m telling you I love you in this scene. You look wherever you want, but I’m going to be looking at you.‘”
Despite this, he said he ultimately had a good experience shooting the rom-com, which he described as “probably my best movie.”
Speaking about working with Tennant, Perry said the director was a “very smart and incredibly nice guy.”
“I was bouncing around doing my funny little things, and [Tennant] would take me aside and say, ‘You don’t have to do that. You’re interesting enough to watch without doing that,'” he said. “That line of thinking allowed him to pull out of me one of the best performances of my career.”
He added, “Could this be a different way of saying Matty, you’re enough, the words I’ve been longing to hear my entire life?”
“Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir” is out November 1. According to Maximilian Publishers, in the book, Perry “takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this candid, funny, and revelatory memoir that delivers a powerful message of hope and persistence.”
See more wild reveals from the book so far below!
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