Matthew Perry: Life After Chandler

Q: Define your personal style when it comes to dressing.

A: My sense of style is an old Polo shirt, jeans and, unfortunately for the longest time, white running shoes, which was not attractive. The one thing I've learned about clothes is to ask a girl. I leave that up to my girlfriend [fashion student Rachel Dunn], to Amanda Peet and some other women who just say, "Put that on." When I went shopping with Amanda recently, she picked out the stuff and on a couple of things I said, "I'd never, ever wear that." She said, "Shut up and listen to me," and I wore the stuff and got compliments.

Q: Do you pick the interior design and choose the furnishings for your own house or let women do that, too?

A: I got some help. My house is very modern with cushy couches and hardwood floors with carpets in the right places. It's a little James Bond-ian, too. If you push a button, a flat-screen TV rises at the foot of my bed. I was traveling around with an architect and saw the greatest bedroom in a house, but I didn't like the rest of the place. Then I found a house I did like and asked the architect, "Can you build that bedroom in this house?" and he did, only better. My bedroom is just sick. It kicks ass.

Q: What's on your stereo right now?

A: I don't have a very "masculine" taste in music. I get a lot of heat from my friends about that. Lately, I've been listening a lot to Damien Rice, but I also like James Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos. I love Kate Bush. She has a song called "This Woman's Work," which is haunting. And the Peter Gabriel-Kate Bush duet "Don't Give Up" is arguably my favorite song. I like REM and U2, too. I found a cover of "Landslide" that Tori Amos did, and I could listen to that all day long--but with the windows down, so no one can hear.

Q: What's missing in your life?

A: In a perfect world, my tennis game gets better. I have kids and a beautiful wife and live on some hill somewhere that's not in Los Angeles. And the script that Tom Hanks just barely turned down gets in my hands. I need to tolerate downtime, to be able to sit down with a book and not tell people you've just done that, or leave the book out so people can see that you've done that.

Q: And the marriage thing?

A: I've chosen not to be married and not have children yet because I still think there's a little bit of selfishness that I'm trying to break down on a daily basis. When I have a child, I want to be ready for that shift--though I feel I'm coming closer and closer to being ready to be that. If a child says, "I want to see Finding Nemo," and you want to go see something else, it's Finding Nemo you're going to see. That movie is a bad example, though, because I went to see it with Hank Azaria and Craig Bierko. We just laughed, had a great time, and it's my favorite movie of the year.

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