Matt LeBlanc

Actor

• Born: July 25, 1967
• Place of Birth: Newton, Massachusetts

Contribution: Matt LeBlanc is an award-winning actor best known for playing Joey Tribbiani on the popular sitcom Friends, which ran from 1994 to 2004.

Background

Matthew “Matt” LeBlanc was born on July 25, 1967, in Newton, Massachusetts. He originally wanted to become a professional racer, but his mother disapproved of his ambitions. Thus, the young LeBlanc picked up carpentry. He quickly realized, however, that that was not how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

At a friend’s suggestion, a seventeen-year-old LeBlanc moved to New York City to try his hand at modeling instead. Because he is under six feet tall, however, he was unable to advance his modeling career. As a result of a chance meeting with an actor, he decided to give acting a try. LeBlanc managed to survive in New York City by doing on-and-off modeling gigs and eventually performing in commercials for major brands such as Levi’s and Heinz.

Career

LeBlanc’s attempts at acting landed him the supporting role of Chuck Bender on the short-lived television drama TV 101 (1988–89), which follows reporter Kevin Keegan as he goes back to his old high school to teach students about cable news production. The series ran for just one season, but it was a proverbial foot in the door for LeBlanc.

Two years later, the rising actor landed a three-episode role on the sitcom Married . . . with Children. Producers liked LeBlanc’s Vinnie Verducci so much that they gave him his own series, Top of the Heap, in 1991. The show only lasted seven episodes before cancellation. ELP Communications remade Top of the Heap as Vinnie and Bobby in 1992; however, the remake lasted seven episodes as well.

Following these forays into acting, LeBlanc auditioned for the sitcom Friends, a show about six ordinary young people living in Manhattan. By this time, the actor was at his breaking point. He had only eleven dollars to his name when he auditioned. Luckily, he was cast as Joey Tribbiani and happily took the role without having any idea how big the show would become. By the time Friends ended its ten-year run in 2004, LeBlanc had been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award and was earning one million dollars per episode.

While Friends was running, LeBlanc took on several side projects. Notable among these were the films Ed (1996), which features a chimpanzee playing third base for a baseball team, Lost in Space (1998), a campy children’s sci-fi adventure, and All the Queen’s Men (2001). He also appeared in the big screen reboot of the popular seventies TV show Charlie's Angels: Charlie’s Angels (2000) and its sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003).

Following Friends, LeBlanc reprised his character of Joey in a spin-off show entitled Joey. In this story, Joey is taken out of his element entirely as he moves away to Los Angeles. Joey ran for two seasons until 2006, before being cancelled because of low ratings. It was filmed during a particularly difficult time in LeBlanc’s life. Because of this, LeBlanc decided to take several years off after Joey to spend time with his daughter and unwind. Having made enough money from his roles on Friends and Joey that he need never work again, LeBlanc came to consider himself very fortunate and decided to be highly selective about the acting roles he would take thereafter.

Five years after Joey ended, LeBlanc was cast in the Showtime television series Episodes. In Episodes, the actor played an exaggerated version of himself—an arrogant, manipulative, overly outgoing, egomaniacal actor. The show revolved around the making of fictional American television series Pucks as well as the drama between leading man LeBlanc and the show’s British writers. LeBlanc won a Golden Globe for his performance in the first season of Episodes and was nominated again in 2013. He also received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015. The fifth season of Episodes was ultimately its last, with the series finale airing in 2017.

While LeBlanc had mainly focused on Episodes while it was in production, he had also taken part in the feature film Lovesick (2014), starring as the lead character Charlie Darby. Additionally, as Episodes was winding down, he began a new television project with the premiere of the CBS sitcom Man with a Plan in 2016. Starring as Adam Burns, he portrayed a husband and father of three children trying to balance his family life with his work life. Despite the show's solid viewership, CBS canceled Man with a Plan in May 2020 amid its fourth season, bringing the show to an end on June 11, 2020. Between 2016 and 2018, LeBlanc additionally served as a cohost on the long-running BBC series Top Gear. In May 2018, LeBlanc announced he would step away fromTop Gear after the twenty-sixth series to focus on his family and friends. He returned for one episode in April 2021 to honor his late colleague, Sabine Schmitz, in a tribute episode.

In 2021, LeBlanc joined his former Friends costars in a reunion special on the streaming service HBO Max. In the special, the Friends cast revisit Stage 24 at Warner Bros. Studios, where they filmed the original series, as well as perform table reads and reenactments of scenes from the show, meet with celebrity guests, and discuss behind-the-scenes details. At the time of its premiere on May 27, 2021, Friends: The Reunion became a smash hit for HBO Max; an estimated 29 percent of streaming households in the US tuned in for the special's debut, which earned positive audience reception.

Impact

LeBlanc has made a successful acting career for himself, becoming one of the most-beloved sitcom stars of the early twenty-first century for his role as Joey Tribbiani on Friends. Through his work on the critically acclaimed television satire Episodes, LeBlanc mocked both the Hollywood television industry and popular American celebrity culture.

Personal Life

LeBlanc married former model Melissa McKnight in 2003, but they divorced in 2006. The couple have one daughter, Marina Pearl.

Television

TV 101, 1988–89

Top of the Heap, 1991

Vinnie and Bobby, 1992

Friends, 1994–2004

Joey, 2004–6

Episodes, 2011–17

Man with a Plan, 2016–2020

Friends: The Reunion, 2021

Film

Lookin’ Italian, 1994

Ed, 1996

Lost in Space, 1998

Charlie’s Angels, 2000

All the Queen’s Men, 2001

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, 2003

Lovesick, 2014

Bibliography

LeBlanc, Matt. Interview by Lucy Broadbent. Telegraph. Telegraph Media, 13 Jan. 2011. Web. 16 Aug. 2013.

LeBlanc, Matt. “Matt LeBlanc: ‘Because I’m Much More Reserved than Joey, People Think I’m Depressed.’” Interview by Decca Aitkenhead. The Guardian, 6 May 2012, p. G2.

LeBlanc, Matt. “Matt LeBlanc Talks Episodes Season 2, Favorite Friends Moments and More.” Interview by Maggie Furlong. Huffington Post, 29 May 2012, www.huffpost.com/entry/matt-leblanc-episodes-season-2‗n‗1639035. Accessed 16 Aug. 2013.

LeBlanc, Matt. “The New, More Fictional Matt LeBlanc.” Interview by Mike Ayers. GQ, Condé Nast, 29 June 2012, www.gq.com/story/matt-leblanc-interview-episodes-friends. Accessed 16 Aug. 2013.

LeBlanc, Matt. “The Untold Story of Matt LeBlanc.” Interview by Dan Snierson. Entertainment Weekly, 22 June 2012, pp. 32–36.

Poniewozik, James. "Friends Reunion: The One With the ‘Remember the One With … ?’." The New York Times, 28 May 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/arts/television/friends-reunion-review.html. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.