Perry Still Embarrased By Shyamalan Mix Up

By Celeb Stink

Actor Matthew Perry was once left red-faced after spending a whole evening talking to director M. Night Shyamalan - before realizing the man was a look-a-like.

The former Friends star first met the filmmaker at a Hollywood awards show during promotion for 1999 movie The Sixth Sense, and he was delighted when he encountered the man he was convinced was Shyamalan on another night out years later.

Perry struck up a friendship with the Shyamalan doppelganger that night and started dreaming about the prospect of working with the director - before he realized his mistake and bailed on his new pal.

He explains, "I was at the People's Choice Awards a while back and that night I met all the Sixth Sense people; M. Night Shyamalan, Haley Joel Osment. So I met them, I spoke with them for a few minutes. Then a few years later I was out at this place in Hollywood and M. Night Shyamalan walked up and said hello. I was like, 'Oh my God, come sit down, please join us.' We sat there for a few minutes and everybody sort of filtered out and it was just me and M. Night Shyamalan. Pretty great, great guy, very talented."

"We talked for a little while, and then I started to realize, you know, he likes me. Laughing at everything I say, really enjoying me. We're not really talking about show business, just sort of bonding. At one point, about an hour into it, he says, 'You know, I know this other place, it's opening night', and so we go to the carpool, he gets his car and I get my car and I follow him all the way across town. On the way there, I started to think, 'Ok, this guy really likes me.' Like in the Hollywood way where I'm going to be the lead in his next movie. I'm like, he's going to make a movie about aliens who come down and there's a trick ending, and it's gonna be me! We go to the next place, we're hanging out. ...Another hour passes, he goes to the bathroom, he comes back, and then... I realize it's not M. Night Shyamalan. It's just an Indian guy who looks a lot like M. Night Shyamalan! I hightailed it out of there. I felt dirty."

But Perry is still embarrassed by his case of mistaken identity and is reminded of it every time he runs into the unnamed man: "The problem is, I see this guy out, now, and we look at each other like jilted lovers." (MT/WNVLET/IG)

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