Matthew Perry in fine form promoting new NBC comedy U.S. networks' summer press tour in Los Angeles

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Matthew Perry talks to journalists Tuesday during the summer press tour. (JORDAN STRAUSS / INVISION)

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Matthew Perry portrays sportscaster Ryan King in the pilot episode of Go On. (JORDIN ALTHAUS / NBC)

HOLLYWOOD -- He may have added a few years and lost a couple of TV series along the way, but Matthew Perry has retained the sharp sense of humour that made him one of the tube's most successful and popular sitcom stars.

The former Friends regular was in fine form when he met the press this week during NBC's portion of the U.S. networks' summer press tour in Los Angeles to discuss his latest TV-comedy effort, Go On. In the show, which will also air on Global in Canada, Perry plays a radio sportscaster grieving the death of his wife; before he returns to work, his boss orders him to join a therapy group to help him deal with the loss.

It's a pretty dark setup for a sitcom, but Perry, 42, does manage to wring some genuine laughs out of the pilot episode. He said he feels audiences will be more inclined to connect with this character than they did with the angry, somewhat difficult guy in his last short-lived series, ABC's Mr. Sunshine.

"I gravitate towards sort of broken characters who try to be better people, and that setup is just much better here," he said. "That guy was sort of in a bad mood and no one really knew why. And this guy has had some very dramatic things happen to him, and he's in denial when you meet him. So it's a sort of built-in excuse to be really funny."

And when one critic in the press conference room asked Perry an awkward question about which TV role has been his favourite to play, the American-born, Canadian-raised performer pounced.

"Well, it would just be stupid to not say this one," he said with a laugh. Then, after a moment's thought, Perry continued:

"That is potentially true about this part, because I get to do a bunch of things all at one time. I really like doing comedy and I really like doing drama, and this is a really funny show. But one of the scenes in the show gave me one of the biggest acting challenges I've had dramatically, so I really like this. So it's either this or The Whole Ten Yards."

Another questioner asked Perry to explain what went wrong with Mr. Sunshine, prefacing the query with the suggestion that many of the critics in the room actually liked that show.

"First of all, this is the room where people liked Mr. Sunshine?" he quipped. "I wish I had just stayed in this room that whole year."

Since Friends ended its 10-season run in 2004, Perry also co-starred in another heavily hyped but quickly cancelled series, the Aaron Sorkin-produced Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He has also made some memorable drama-series guest appearances, most notably in Sorkin's The West Wing and the current CBS hit The Good Wife.

But of course, with Perry and his quintet of former co-stars, any TV-related interview will inevitably make its way to Friends. And this week, the guy who spent a very successful decade playing Chandler Bing offered a simple, direct explanation of what made that show such a huge TV hit.

"It was just great chemistry," he said. "It had great writing. It had great directing. And it had really, really great acting. So a little bit of magic happened there.

"And you never know when and how that's going to happen. All you have to do is just surround yourself with funny, talented people, which I certainly have done here with this (Go On) group."

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Later in the day, Perry and his castmates joined the other stars of NBC's new shows at a poolside cocktail party at the historic Beverly Hilton Hotel, the site of this summer TV press tour. The Friends alumnus drew a conversational crowd, as expected, but it turned out that Perry and all the other NBC talent were upstaged by a head-turning appearance by former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who arrived alongside husband Todd, who has signed on as a cast member in the upcoming military-themed reality-competition series Stars Earn Stripes.

The politician-turned-pundit arrived without any fanfare and, seemingly, without any visible security-detail personnel, and was soon swept up in a media scrum that lasted at least an hour.

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And finally, on a subject that combines comedy and politics, NBC announced it will air a pair of U.S. election-themed Saturday Night Live specials in prime time this fall. The live events, which will air Sept. 20 and 27 on NBC, continue a long SNL tradition of spoofing presidential politics that began with Chevy Chase's pratfalling impersonation of President Gerald Ford and more recently included Canuck comic Norm MacDonald's gruff-monotoned impersonation of Republican candidate Bob Dole and Tina Fey's spot-on impression of Sarah Palin, John McCain's controversial running-mate choice.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 26, 2012 D3