Yvette Nicole Brown couldn’t look Matthew Perry “in the eye” when they worked together.
The 53-year-old actress was such a huge fan of the late “Friends” star — who died in October 2023 at the age of 54 — that when they starred together on the 2015 sitcom “The Odd Couple,” she could hardly concentrate on the show.
“I was a big fan of Matthew’s and I remember when I first met him, I never looked him in the eye because I just thought I would like maybe cry or fangirl a little bit too much. We had got at least two episodes in and I kindly went up and I said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry, I’m a weirdo, but I just really love you. And I think Chandler was really great,’ ” she recalled on the “Behind the Velvet Rope” podcast.
Following her confrontation, Perry put the former “Drake and Josh” star’s mind to rest.
“He was like, ‘Yvette, like, what are you doing? Like, this is me, it’s fine.’ And so he kind of helped me get over my little crush, weird fangirl thing. I was able to pull it together on camera, but after we would cut, I just kind of scurry away because I just was afraid I’d embarrass myself. I really, really was a huge fan,” she said.
“Friends” initially ran from 1994 until 2004 and, alongside Perry, made household names out of Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow.
Brown noted that part of her affinity with the NBC sitcom was because she had begun to pursue an acting career in California the year that it first aired.
“When I first moved to L.A. after college, it was the year that ‘Friends’ debuted. So I spent a lot of time watching that show, dreaming of my life and what I want[ed]. And we were the same age and they were starting their lives in New York and I was starting my life in California. And so [there were] lot of parallels [of] not having money and hoping somebody likes you back and all of that stuff,” she said.
