Will Friedle Vanished After Boy Meets World—Now We Know Why

Eric Matthews, the lovable moron older brother with perfect '90s sitcom hair, should've been a launchpad to bigger things. But when the show ended in 2000, Friedle all but disappeared from Hollywood. And now we finally know what happened — and it's not the story fans expected.

At a 2018 panel at New York Comic Con, Friedle got blunt:

"I was planning to do more on-camera work, but then I got hit with these anxiety attacks that prevented me from doing that."

He said the anxiety kicked in when he was 22 or 23 — right as his career looked like it was about to take off.

"My career was going in one direction, I thought I was going to be an on-camera actor my entire life. It got to the point where my anxiety was so bad that I couldn't audition for on-camera stuff anymore."

Instead of pushing through and flaming out, Friedle backed away. He stopped appearing onscreen almost entirely after 2005. His post-Boy Meets World film work included two blink-and-you-missed-it projects:

• National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (2004)
• Everything You Want (2005)

And then? Nothing. No tabloids, no red carpets — just gone.

That is, until he found a lane where anxiety didn't have a grip on him: voice acting.

"What brought me to voice-over was anxiety," he said. "I was so thankful I had voice-over because I could still perform and act."

And perform he did. Friedle quietly built a whole second career behind the mic:

• Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible
• Terry McGinnis / Batman in Batman Beyond
• Lion-O in Thundercats
• Star-Lord, Deadpool, Nightwing, Bumblebee, Green Lantern, Master Splinter — take your pick. If it's animated and remotely cool, there's a good chance Friedle voiced it.

Still, his return to live-action came as a surprise when he briefly reprised Eric Matthews for the Disney spinoff Girl Meets World. At first, he was hesitant. But after watching the show and seeing the fans' response, he changed his mind.

"There came a point where it almost wasn't fair if the audience didn't get to see what happened to Eric," he told Entertainment Weekly. "They've been there forever… you're just kind of being mean if you don't come back."

He also revealed he almost didn't play Eric in the first place. He was sick during the original casting for what was then called The Untitled Ben Savage Project, and someone else shot the pilot. But that actor got replaced — not for performance, but for height.

"He was the same size as Ben, and they knew Ben was going to grow. They wanted an older brother, so they recast."

In hindsight, maybe Eric was wandering around looking for meaning because his actor was doing the same thing in real life. The '90s heartthrob didn't flame out — he pivoted, adapted, and kept working in a way that worked for him. Not everyone needs the spotlight. Some just need a sound booth and a script.