'Get me away from Chandler'

Lying on his hospital bed, his body wasting away from a potentially lethal cocktail of drink and drugs - "there was way too much partying in my life" - the positive thought that Matthew Perry clung to was the knowledge that his five onscreen Friends were willing his recovery. "I didn't want to speak to or see them at the time," he says now, "but it was important for me to know that they were doing all they could to support me."

Fame, it seemed, was heaping more misery on Perry's shoulders than he was able to cope with, culminating in his admission to a rehabilitation clinic for addiction to drink and drugs.

At his lowest ebb Perry was relying on two pints of vodka and up to 30 painkillers to get him through the day. His weight at first ballooned to around 14 stone and then plummeted to less than 11, leaving him in hospital with acute pancreatitis, caused by years of substance abuse.

"When I was in hospital, I wasn't thinking about work as much as just trying to get healthy again and stop abusing my system by partying my life away," he says. "But when you're young, you think you are immortal. Then your doctor tells you that you had better take care of yourself or this is your reward - eating chicken soup and watching reruns on a small hospital TV.

"It took me a while to realise I couldn't fritter my life away, waste the advantages I had been given, let everyone around me down.''

Today, he seems to have learned those lessons well. He bounds into the room full of nervous energy and throws himself onto the nearest sofa. Dressed in sharply pressed West Coast uniform - loud shorts and a sports shirt - he's looking trim, lightly tanned with a smattering of stubble.

There's a nod of greeting but it's as if he needs the nicotine fuel of a cigarette and the caffeine from his three cans of diet cola before he's able to utter a word.

Bizarrely, in person Perry seems to inhabit his Friends character Chandler Bing. It only takes a few minutes of sarcastic asides and wise-cracking anecdotes to leave me feeling unsure whether I'm talking to Perry or Bing. Perhaps it doesn't matter.

But it does to him. In a few weeks he'll bid farewell to his five other Friends - and his $1 million an episode fee - as the 10th and final series comes to an end. And here he is already fretting over whether he can survive post-Chandler.

"I know that being tied so closely to a character may seem like it could be a bit of a hindrance. Obviously, I am always going to face the challenge of people seeing me as Chandler," he shrugs.

"But it won't do me any good to worry about other people's perceptions and feel sorry that I have become identified with a character. I'm open to anything which is going to take me away from what people might expect. If I want my career to go anywhere, I need to get as far away from Chandler as I can.

"I would describe my mindset as a mixture of the paranoid fear that you'll never work again and the kind of wonderful anticipation that comes from knowing that now you're finally going to have the chance to do a different kind of work - work that is going to be a test of your talent. I've got to do all I can now to make sure people don't groan when they next see me up on screen."

But unlike fellow Friends Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston, who have both enjoyed successful film careers, 34-yearold Perry has yet to prove he can succeed outside that cosy Manhattan apartment.

"So much was written about how sad we all were by the time we got to shooting the last few episodes, that the public thought we were all having nervous breakdowns," he chuckles. "Yes, the end of Friends was a sad moment and I was incredibly upset; I felt like crying the whole day.

"But then you wake up and realise that this is the end of an incredibly successful and fulfilling chapter in your life; there's a sense of accomplishment," he continues. "You start feeling excited about moving on to something new and shaking your life up a bit."

Friends is obviously a source of immense pride for Perry. It may not have been as sexy as Sex and the City, nor as sophisticated as Frasier, yet for four million Britons every week it is resoundingly hip, metropolitan and as influential as anything that's been on television in the past decade. Possibly, the first aspirational sitcom.

"I quite like being a tiny part of history," he says, trying - not very hard, it must be said - to stifle a beaming smile. "And the money was nice but, you know, the salary you get starts to become so big that it is almost meaningless.''

But after 237 episodes and nine years of seemingly arrested development among the impossibly complex love lives and career mishaps of the six stars, doesn't it also feel a little stale?

"I think the show has been pretty excellent throughout the 10 series. The writing is brilliant and we've worked so well as a unit. Sure, it's become like a comfortable family, which is why it's so hard to leave. But bland and predictable? I've never thought that about a single episode."

It is only a few weeks until all the plotlines will be tied up, bringing an end to Chandler and Monica's rather saccharine adoption story and their desire to move to the suburbs. And that's possibly why this series seems a little past its prime. Since the characters started growing up - getting married and becoming parents - the original premise of the show, that you could be happy and single, has worn away and, for some, the show, and its stars, have started to show their age. It's okay to be insecure and obsessed with your friends' behaviour when you're twentysomething, but by the time you're pushing 40, it looks a little self-indulgent.

"I know the criticism has been that we all come across as self-obsessed and constantly at the mercy of love, money and career, but why should we be ashamed of that? It's what a lot of people's lives are all about. Friends has at its central core a group of people whose characteristics we all share. That's one of the reasons it works so well. Plus, it's brilliantly funny."

Funny, maybe, but it also took its toll physically and mentally. Clean now of drink and drugs for more than two years and the picture of health, Perry credits his current girlfriend, fashion student Rachel Dunn, with providing some stability in his life. In the past he has been linked with Jennifer Capriati, Heather Graham and Julia Roberts, but it is Rachel, he says, with whom he is considering settling down and starting a family.

"It's something I think about a lot more now than 10 years ago. When Friends started, I really never considered it," he smiles. "With Rachel in my life, I know that I can be very committed and not some selfish guy who just wants to hang out with friends. I want to spend time with my girlfriend and explore what it means to have a much closer relationship than I've previously had time for."

Raised in Ottawa, Canada, Perry's first thoughts of a career were in tennis; he won a national ranking but gave up the game in his late teens after getting "butt-kicked" on the tournament circuit.

Instead he decided to follow in the footsteps of his actor father John Bennett Perry, the face of of the 1970s Old Spice adverts, and his stepfather Keith Morrison, a TV personality.

ASIDE from the success of Friends, there have been a few forgettable films - including the universally panned Serving Sara, in which he starred opposite Liz Hurley - a couple of stints on The West Wing and last year he appeared on the West End stage in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago.

"The one thing I want to do now is get my tennis back in shape," he grins. "I grew up loving the sport and haven't been able to pursue it as much as I would have wanted over the years.''

He is also keen to concentrate on a career on the big screen. He has just finished filming The Whole Ten Yards with Bruce Willis - the sequel to their 2000 comedy, The Whole Nine Yards. It is important for Perry that it is a success; after all, away from Friends he has remained a bit of an unknown quantity.

I sense that he's still desperate to prove himself and also to give the impression that his past traumas are firmly in the past. "I'm having a blast getting on with my life. I'm fine ... really fine!"

The way he stresses "really fine", takes a deep draw of his cigarette and stares at me intently makes it all seem like some sort of protestation of innocence rather than a cheery retort to my questioning of his current state of mind. "I've got a lot to look forward to, I really have."