Hank Azaria recently shared an emotional tribute to Matthew Perry after the actor passed away suddenly over the weekend.

Azaria said, “Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles. When I moved there I was 21, he was 16. We did a pilot together… that never saw the light of day.”

He continued, “Matthew and I became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time. We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career. As funny as he was on Friends… in person he was just the funniest man ever.”

He added, “I really loved him, a lot of close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago, because as he documented in his autobiography there was so much suffering. I had to pick up and put down that biography like 11 times, it was so painful for me to read. As his friend who loved him, I knew he must be suffering but the details of it were just devastating.”

Azaria continued, “From a recovery perspective — I’ve been a sober guy for 17 years – I want to say the night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in. The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together… As a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober. I really wish he could have found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently.”

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