For ‘Friends’ actor, self-focused comedy proves rewarding

There was a surreal decade, starting in 1994, when fans confused Matt LeBlanc with his “Friends” alter ego, Joey Tribbiani: a flailing actor with voracious appetites who was also kind of dumb.

So, several years later, when “Friends” co-creator David Crane and his partner, Jeffrey Klarik, pitched a new series, “Episodes,” to LeBlanc, the actor was initially concerned: They wanted him to play a character named Matt LeBlanc — like himself, only a jerk.

“I was like: ‘I’m playing myself? I don’t know what that means. How close to the real me?’” he recalled. “I wasn’t sure just how damaged he was going to be.” (Apparently not too damaged: The actor has earned four Emmy nominations and won a Golden Globe for the role.)

“Episodes,” whose fifth and final season began Sunday on Showtime, follows a couple of British TV writers (played by Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan) whose award-winning sitcom about the headmaster of an elite boys school is given the Hollywood treatment — including a starring role for LeBlanc. And, in no time, their erudite comedy is as dumbeddown and tattered as an overused CliffsNotes guide.

In a phone interview from Los Angeles — where he lives when not shooting the BBC series “Top Gear” in London — LeBlanc chatted about his life: the real version.

After “Friends” ended in 2004 and then its spinoff, “Joey,” in 2006, you didn’t work for nearly five years.

I was tired, and I had gone through a divorce. I was going to take a year off, and then I had such a good time not doing anything that I was like, “You know what? I’m going to do

that again and again and again and again.” And then David and Jeffrey pitched “Episodes.”

Playing an occasionally unflattering version of yourself must have seemed daunting.

I’ve known David and Jeffrey since “Friends,” so I trusted them implicitly. I was able to commit very readily to whatever the story was, whatever the joke was, whatever the scene needed — even to some ideas where I was initially like, “I don’t know.” I knew that they would look out for me.

Was there anything freeing about playing the fictional Matt?

It was a similar thing with Joey Tribbiani. There are no rules.

Have you finally escaped “Friends”?

I’m very proud of that show. I don’t feel the need to put it behind me. ... That’s something that new generations discover every year, and it’s on all the time all over the world, and it makes people laugh.

Has your 13-yearold daughter, Marina, discovered it?

She has watched it here and there, but I think she sees enough of me.

As a host of “Top Gear,” you’ve zoomed around in a Ferrari 812 Superfast and a Porsche Panamera Gran Turismo. What do you drive in real life?

I’m a Porsche 911 guy.

The perfect car wardrobe for a man who just turned 50. How is it reaching that milestone?

I’ve found myself looking at my life and thinking that it’s time to maybe slow down a little bit and smell the roses. So I’ll let these shows play out and see. And then I don’t know that I’ll do anything else. I might just fade off into the distance.