Julia Roberts has paid tribute to Matthew Perry who she starred alongside in a rather iconic episode of Friends.

The actor died on October 28, aged 54, after being found unresponsive in a jacuzzi in his LA mansion.

‘The sudden passing of anybody so young is heartbreaking,’ the 56-year-old Pretty Woman star said in a statement. ‘I think that, you know, it just helps all of us just appreciate what we have and to keep going in a positive way as best we can.’
LISA KUDROW AS PHOEBE BUFFAY, MATTHEW PERRY AS CHANDLER BING, JENNIFER ANISTON AS RACHEL GREEN, DAVID SCHWIMMER AS ROSS GELLER, COURTENEY COX AS MONICA GELLER, MATT LEBLANC AS JOEY TRIBBIANI, PIC: JON RAGEL/NBCU PHOTO BANK/NBCUNIVERSAL VIA GETTY IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Matthew had a knack of getting Hollywood stars on Friends in unusual ways. Like how he famously convinced Bruce Willis to appear on the show for free thanks to a bet on the set of The Whole Nine Yards and it turns out that’s not the weirdest way he convinced someone to appear on the sitcom.

Julia Roberts was one of the first big names to pop up on the show as a former classmate of Mr Bing and it looks like he had a hand in getting her on board.

When executive producer Kevin Bright spoke to The Hollywood Reporter with show creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman he shared how Matthew convinced her to take the role.

JULIA ROBERTS AND MATTHEW PERRY IN FRIENDS. PIC: NBC

Julia appeared in the famed episode The One After The Super Bowl and played Susie — a former elementary school classmate of Chandler’s.

The two end up dating but it was all a ruse to get revenge on Chandler for humiliating her as a child. In order to convince her to take the role, Perry wrote to Roberts and her response was surprising to say the least

She asked him to write her a full-term paper on quantum physics. Yes, physics!

JULIA ROBERTS AND MATTHEW PERRY IN FRIENDS. PIC: NBC

Kevin Bright revealed: ‘Matthew asked her to be on the show. She wrote back to him, “Write me a paper on quantum physics, and I’ll do it.”

‘My understanding is that Matthew went away and wrote a paper and faxed it to her the next day.’

It turns out that fax machine saw a lot of action between the two as writer Alexa Junge revealed that the two flirted via the device for a while.

PIC: DANNY FELD/NBCU PHOTO BANK

She said that Julia would send Matthew questionnaires asking him, ‘Why should I go out with you?’ and everyone in the writer’s room helped him explain to her as to why.

‘He could do pretty well without us, but there was no question we were on Team Matthew and trying to make it happen for him,’ she added.

Shortly after her cameo was filmed, the two did date for a while and it seems they have the Friends team to thank for that.