Director Mary Robertson on Matthew Perry Doc: 'I Did Feel Matthew'

Netflix's three-part docuseries "The One About Matthew Perry," now streaming, rests on the first public account by the actor's sister, Mia Perry Bowick, of his decadeslong struggle with addiction. Director Mary Robertson told Variety the series nearly never happened, and she gained the family's trust only after Perry's death in 2023.

At the series' end, Robertson can be heard off camera telling Bowick: "He feels very present." She expanded on that moment in an interview with Variety. "I'm not someone who traffics in theories about the paranormal, and I don't think I believe in UFOs, although feel free to prove me wrong," Robertson said. "But I did feel Matthew, and I mean that in multiple senses."

Bowick, Perry's half sister through their father, actor John Bennett Perry, gives new details of private moments across the series. They include repeated rehab visits and her presence at his bedside after his 2018 near-fatal colon rupture. "This is it, he is not waking up," Bowick says in Episode 3.

How did the documentary come together?

After Perry's 2022 memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing," Robertson and her Maxine Productions team approached his publisher and inner circle. They never heard back. Only after Perry's death from the acute effects of ketamine in 2023 did the project gain traction.

The first interview came from close friend Roger Castillo, flown to Los Angeles after many calls. Friend David Pressman followed. At a first Zoom meeting, Robertson recalled, Bowick and her husband David said, "We're nervous." Robertson answered, "We're nervous too." She said that exchange became "the beginning of a really beautiful connection."

Robertson confirmed the team reached out to Perry's "Friends" co-stars, but "they chose not to" participate. They appear only in archival footage. Bowick recounts Perry being taken directly from rehab to set for Monica and Chandler's Season 7 wedding, and the cast arriving at his funeral holding hands, crying together at his open casket. Former NBC entertainment president Warren Littlefield discusses casting Perry as Chandler Bing and managing his rehab visits during production.

Why exclude the memoir?

Robertson read the memoir in one sitting and included only its opening page: "Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead." She said the documentary covers what the first-person book cannot. "This is their account that's missing from the memoir," she said, describing the perspective of those who loved someone "grappling with this enormous monster."

Perry speaks for himself through raw footage from a 2009 interview with Kevin Pollack for "Kevin Pollack's Chat Show," granted by Pollack. "It's not a talk show host who's been prepped for the interview," Robertson said. "Making each other laugh was their sport."

What does the series say about his death?

Five people were convicted in connection with supplying the ketamine that killed Perry. Robertson, whose credits include "Framing Britney Spears" and "Quiet on Set," said the series is not investigative but leaned on law enforcement because those closest to Perry were excluded from his addiction-driven life. "Truth and accuracy are always our North Stars," she said.

Robertson next turns to financial-crimes series for Peacock and Paramount+, and she predicts the documentary genre is entering a moment of evolution, citing renewed audience appetite for boundary-breaking biographical work.