In 1995, photographer George Lange was commissioned to Entertainment WeeklyAutumn TV edition for preview. In addition to conceptual shoots for television shows such as Seinfeld, Frasier and EmergencyLange task included Friends, NBC’s new sitcom at the time. For this shoot, which took place in a large Hollywood studio, Lange had a wall built that contained five large geometric shapes that depicted Friends cast members, including Matthew Perry.
“I realized he was going to climb into them,” Lange recalls to PEOPLE Sunday about Friends actors, “but they showed up like a hundred people between publicists and TV people and network people and their hairdressers, and there were all these paparazzi outside the door. It was complete chaos.
“And I get them all in these boxes and they look fantastic. But I realized I hadn’t thought about what they were doing when they got into the boxes. You are surrounded by all these people and suddenly you are very alone. But I said, ‘You all need to hang on,’ which was the perfect thing to do. And they held their own and couldn’t have been more professional or sweeter or really nicer. They all looked amazing.”
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Lange’s recollections of it EW shoot following the announcement of Perry’s death at the age of 54 on Saturday. It was his 16-year-old son, Jackson, who broke the news.
“He was watching TikTok and the news got to TikTok,” says Lange. “He came down and said, ‘Have you ever photographed Matthew Perry?’ I made this big Friends recorded back in 1995, I pulled it out and this one shot appeared, which is the shot I showed.”
A photo Lange recently unearthed from that shoot is a previously unreleased image of a stylized Perry and Jennifer Aniston posing together inside a wall-mounted circle.
“They climb into the boxes and hold each other. And it’s like five minutes later I’m done. I have my picture. The only thing I did was take pictures of them individually or in a group. There is one video I uploaded of Jennifer and Matthew together. That’s very sweet.”
“But the thing is, as a photographer, you want to photograph who they are, not who I am,” adds Lange. “So when they get in the box, I don’t tell them what to do because you’re already doing it. They already have that relationship. So I just kind of let them control the situation. I mean, I make sure the light is good and all that stuff, but for me, the thrill is seeing how they naturally communicate, not how I tell them to communicate.”
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Although he never saw Lange Friendsadmits that the bond between the cast members that viewers have seen on screen is mirrored in real life.
“Totally,” he says. “And what you saw in that picture wasn’t me telling them how to smile, how to hold their bodies, how to… She’s kind of right behind him. Everything is great. He looks very handsome.”
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Lange, whose book, Painting Joy: Stories of Connectionreleased on November 7, vividly reminds of how special the relationship is Friends the actors beamed during filming.
“What’s so beautiful about that picture of that cast is that there’s not just a mental and spiritual connection, there’s a physical connection,” he says. “I don’t photograph groups that well. And it’s one of the few really successful group pictures I’ve ever taken.”
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The night before Perry’s death made the news, Lange attended a friend’s 50th birthday party. In an Instagram post from Saturday that included a photo of Perry and Aniston, Lange wrote that he told a friend at the party how being on the other side of 50 is a chance to embrace new possibilities, while also noting that Perry just turned 54.
“We don’t know how long we’re going to be here,” Lange tells PEOPLE. “I’m sure Matthew Perry didn’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘Well, this is my last day.’ So none of us, most of us know that. We should appreciate all the goodness around us.”
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