By Chuck Arnold for YM Magazine, October 1995.
Friends star Matt Leblanc hates pickup lines, would date a friend and wants to give you his top-secret love lessons.
On the hit series Friends, Matt LeBlanc has five of the best buds a guy could ask for - and three of them are girls. So it's not surprising that this irresistible babe magnet showed up for our interview with his live-in gal pal. Now, don't freak out - Matt is definitely single. The female he shares his place with is a pooch named Lady, and we're meeting at a dog park right down the hill from Madonna's house in Hollywood.
It's been a long day for Matt, starting this morning with his YM cover shoot, but he's still smiling as he scoops up Lady's poop. Even when the camera isn't clicking, he can't help but turn on the charm.
Matt may be smooth, but he's way more sensitive than his Friends character, Joey Tribbiani. A struggling actor and adorable bimboy, Joey thinks more with his hormones than his head. Matt, who learned plenty of love lessons when he was in high school, is a much smarter stud.
"I went out with a lot of girls in school; I definitely dated around," admits the 28-year-old heartthrob. "But I wasn't one of those guys who blew the girls away. I had to work for it."
Unlike Joey, however, there are limits to how far Matt will go to get a girl. For instance, he swears that he has never used a pickup line in his life.
"Pickup lines are a total scam," he says. "You're either really bending the truth or telling a flat-out lie."
With his supersexy body language, Matt would hardly need to open his mouth to come on to a girl. His secret weapon? Maybe it's that goofy thing he does with his eyebrows when he's teasing. Or maybe it's the cute way the cleft in his chin crinkles when he's flirting. Or maybe it's simply that he's even hunkier in person than he is on television.
The major reason Matt is looking hotter than usual today is the hair. It's lighter, shorter and spikier than his 'do on Friends. "People say it makes me look less edgy," he says.
Matt can't take credit for the new cut, though, because it wasn't his choice. Right now he's filming his first major movie, Ed, and the producers want him to have a more innocent look, hence, the mini-makeover. In the flick, which is scheduled to come out next year, Matt stars as a minor-league pitcher who develops a good friendship with his team's third baseman, Ed, who just happens to be a chimpazee.
As fans remember, Matt starred with another primate - Marcel the monkey - during the first season of Friends. He says they bonded big-time. "I like animals," confesses Matt, seeming a little worried that this will ruin his tough-guy image.
Matt also has a soft spot for his human "Friends." He was psyched for the new season while he was busy shooting Ed this summer. "We all get along so well. They're all really intelligent, they're all really nice, and they're all really funny. When the six of us are together, it's just nonstop laughter."
In fact, says Matt, they're so tight they even socialize outside the studio. "We go over to each other's houses and hang out, or sometimes we'll get together and watch the show on TV."
Matt is just as close to his female costars (Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow) as he is to his male ones (David Schwimmer and Matthew Perry). He believes that girl-guy friendships are not only natural but necessary. From his own experience, though, Matt discovered that what starts out platonic can often wind up romantic.
"We're very sexual beings, and I think curiosity killed the cat," he says. "When a girl and a guy become friends, it's a constant and tricky decision-making process: Should we or shouldn't we, and will it wreck the friendship?"
But don't expect Joey to become lovers with any of his girl "Friends" in the future - at least if Matt has his way. "I don't think any of the girls on the show is a good match for Joey. Occasionally he flirts with them, but it's all in fun."
Lisa Kudrow, who plays Phoebe, says it's better that way, because Joey's the kind of boy your mother always warned you about. "He is just a girl's nightmare - very sweet, but you know he's inevitably going to cheat," she says.
Matt didn't cheat, but he certainly lied to two women when he moved from Newton, Massachusetts, his hometown, into his first New York apartment. He convinced two flight attendant roommates that he had a major trust fund, when all he had was $3,000 from selling his truck.
To pay the bills, he tried modeling, but didn't make it big, "They told me I was too short," he says (he's five feet elevent). "Modeling's all about the clothes anyway. I didn't want to stand still all day having my picture taken just to show off a jacket."
Matt got into acting with commercials for Levi's, Coke and Doritos, among others, but it took roles in a few TV-series bombs (TV 101, Top of the Heap, Vinnie and Bobby) before he became a household hunk.
With the huge success of Friends, Matt has no trouble making rent - or making new pals. But many of his best buds knew him when he was neither rich nor famous. "A true friends is someone who respects you and is always there for you," he says. "I have friends from all different walks of life, which I really like. If you put all of my friends together in one room, it would be a very funny picture."
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