It was an M. Night to remember.
“Friends” star Matthew Perry had a wildly drunken encounter with “Sixth Sense” director M. Night Shyamalan about two decades ago —but the incident evolved into a wacky case of nearly mistaken identity that has since become Hollywood legend.
The incident first came to light during a 2016 episode of “The Graham Norton Show,” when “17 Again” star Perry claimed to have partied hard with the Indian-American auteur in the early 2000s. Perry, 51, said that — at the time — his story was dismissed by a friend who believed that he was hanging with just some “random Indian dude.”
However, in a twist worthy of one of his movies, Shyamalan revealed that the Hollywood urban legend was, in fact, true. He dropped the boozy bombshell during a 2021 video appearance on Norton’s talk show — just as buzz started to swirl around Perry’s return to the spotlight in the “Friends” reunion on HBO Max.
“I’m watching it [Perry’s 2016 appearance], and here’s the twist: We did actually hang out,” said Shyamalan, 50, who was promoting the second season of his Apple TV+ series “Servant.”
The filmmaker said he used his “amateur sleuth” skills to deduce why Perry’s friend thought he’d encountered a Shyamalan clone and not the director himself.
“So, we were hanging out and we were having fun, and Matthew’s like, ‘Let’s go to another place,’ ” Shyamalan explained.
“And I’m like, ‘I’m a little tired. I’m going to leave here and you can go to the other place.’ Meanwhile, there’s this kind of fan that’s been hanging about and he’s also Indian. And he’s a big fan, he’s come over a couple of times, wants to hang out with us.”
That’s when the mixup occurred, according to Shyamalan.
The “Signs” director said he believes that the “Friends” star “went on to continue partying and this other Indian dude joined him,” which led Perry’s buddy to believe that he’d mistaken the fan for Shyamalan.
That subsequently caused the “Almost Heroes” actor to second-guess himself — when, Shyamalan said, “We actually had this evening together.”
Now, Shyamalan, for one, wants to make things right.
“All these years later, I have to see him because we did hang out, we had a great time and he was very funny,” he said.
Thankfully, the misunderstanding wasn’t Perry’s first time brushing up against the scream merchant. Perry had reportedly first met Shyamalan about 20 years ago after presenting his “The Whole Nine Yards” co-star Bruce Willis with the People’s Choice Award for best actor.
Perry had reportedly met the director along with “Sixth Sense” star Haley Joel Osment at the after-party, at a time when the star was “still drinking,” he told Norton.
Perry recently had fans in a panic when he was heard slurring his speech in a promo video for the upcoming “Friends” reunion special, set to premiere May 27 on HBO Max. It was unclear what may have been amiss, but the star has been open about his past struggles with drugs and alcohol — which got so bad at one point that he couldn’t recall filming multiple seasons of the NBC sitcom.
Fortunately, Perry has reportedly been sober for several years, and even garnered a Champion of Recovery Award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2013.
Perry said he had received particular support from “Friends” castmate Cox, 56, as well as a sober coach who lived close to him in Malibu.
Despite his sobriety milestones, the actor has been the subject of controversy of late. Most recently, Perry was accused of “taking advantage” of younger women by TikTok user Kate Haralson, who had matched with him on the dating app Raya when she was 19. She told Page Six that she had purposefully adjusted the dating app’s settings so she’d match with older guys “for the joke of it.”
Haralson even uploaded a video of their somewhat uneventful conversation, which resulted in her getting booted from Raya for violating the platform’s privacy rules.