Matthew Perry Wanted This Co-Star to Play Him in the Biopic He Was Working On, Friend Reveals (Exclusive)

Matthew Perry was so “enthusiastic” and “absolutely looking forward to life” that his future plans included working on a biopic and he already had the perfect co-star to play the younger version of him — Zac Efron.

Athenna Crosby, the woman photographed having lunch with the beloved Friends star the day before his shocking death, tells ET’s Kevin Frazier that Perry had so many plans in his future, which included working on a biopic that would tell his triumphant story.

“He said that he wanted to make a movie about his life,” Crosby, 25, tells ET. “And he had worked with Zac Efron in the past on a movie, and he said that he wanted Zac Efron to play him as a younger version [of himself] and that he was gonna ask him soon to do that. He was just looking forward to sharing more about his story and his recovery from addiction, and really championing that cause to help more people, so he was so optimistic and happy about everything that he wanted to do.”

ET has reached out to Efron’s rep for comment. Perry and Efron starred in the 2009 comedy 17 Again, in which Perry portrays the present-day 37-year-old protagonist and Efron plays the 17-year-old version.

Crosby, who says she met Perry through a mutual friend, is opening up about her friendship with Perry after she was photographed on Oct. 27 having lunch with him at Hotel Bel-Air at around 2:30 p.m. The next day, Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home at approximately 4 p.m. from an apparent drowning. He was 54.

Crosby was one of the last people to speak with Perry at length. TMZ, which obtained photos of the lunch outing, purported that they spent over an hour sitting at the same table. Since being identified as the woman, Crosby says she sought to clear the air on the nature of their relationship, reiterating that they were friends and nothing more.

During that lunch outing, Crosby says Perry, who only had a few bites of his plain cheeseburger and fries, couldn’t have been happier about where his life was headed.

“He was doing great. He is a very funny person, as most people know him to be,” she said. “He’s goofy, he’s silly. He was cracking jokes the whole time. He was speaking to me about some of the upcoming projects that he wanted to work on. He was very optimistic about the future.”

She added, “He was talking about how there’s been a public resurgence of interest in him lately and how he was hoping to utilize that to have a second act in his career. He was happy as a clam. So, that’s the person that I spoke to.”

Crosby says Perry’s untimely death is affecting her the way it’s affecting the rest of the world, many of whom are still in shambles over the death of a beloved actor who made a name for himself as the hilarious Chandler Bing on the hit NBC sitcom. Crosby says she’s trying her best to relay what Perry was like in his final moments.

“I was definitely not trying to talk about this,” she says. “I am an entertainment industry professional myself and I know that celebrities are very private people. I’ve met many [celebrities] in my lifetime and Matthew happened to be one that I knew personally, so I was never going to say anything about that except we went to lunch on Friday and low and behold somebody had taken a photo of us without his or my knowledge and it’s just been blowing up. People are speculating as to what he was doing that day before he died. And that’s the only reason why I have to kind of clear the air now.”

It had been reported that Perry played pickleball just hours before he was found dead at his home. Crosby says the Fools Rush In star was obsessed with the sport that has now become all the rage.

“Matthew loved pickleball, and it’s something I did not understand because pickleball is such a hot thing right now that I don’t know why people are obsessed with it. But he was one of the people that was,” Crosby shares. “He is always including people on what he’s doing. He definitely asked me to go play with him and said, ‘You should come hit the court with me.’ I respectfully said, ‘No, I’m not athletic.’ But he was just so happy to involve people in his life and show them how good he was doing.”

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