Elizabeth Hurley on Matthew Perry: Lovely man, but "nightmare working with him"

Matthew Perry would likely be the first person to admit he was difficult to work with in the throes of his addiction—in fact, he pretty much has, in his new memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. In one section, he acknowledges that director Reginald Hudlin and co-star Elizabeth Hurley were understandably “pissed off” when their movie Serving Sara had to be shut down while he entered rehab, something Hurley will attest to 20 years later.

“I haven’t actually read the book yet, but I’ve read [excerpts] of it. It’s quite interesting. He’s a very funny writer like he’s a very funny man. He’s an incredibly gifted comedian… his way with words is fantastic,” Hurley gushes about Perry in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment. “I have very fond memories of him.”

However, she admits, “To be honest, it was a nightmare working with him at that time and, as it’s now known, our movie was shut down because of his addiction. We were in a force majeure and had to all sit at home twiddling our thumbs for some time.”

In an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, Perry shared that around the time he was filming Serving Sara he was ingesting Xanax, Methadone, and a quart of vodka each day. “It was shot in Dallas and I was doing Friends at the same time, so it doubled my workload. And I was flying on a private jet drinking vodka out of a water bottle,” he said.

“That was a little tough, but he came back and he was fabulous,” Hurley says of that period, recalling that Perry “had to revoice everything that we shot before” when he returned to set two months later. “It was tough, obviously he was having a tough time, but he was still very charming and a lovely person to work with, but you could see he was suffering for sure.”