Lisa Kudrow Says the Friends Cast ‘Worked Hard’ to Become Tight-Knit: ‘That Six-Way Relationship Took Some Work’

Lisa Kudrow is sharing how the Friends cast really felt about each other.

During a recent appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Kudrow, 61, talked about why she never gets sick of reminiscing on her time on Friends. She explained that the cast always had fun on set because they were as tight-knit offscreen as they were onscreen.

“It was great, we really did get along,” she said. “We also worked hard at being friends. That six-way relationship took some work and we did it.”

“[It was] really talking things through,” she continued. “If someone said something or did something, it didn’t get too big, because it was, ‘Can I talk to you?’ — usually not me, because I had to learn to be, ‘Can I talk to you about something?’ because I never knew that was allowed. But I saw it modeled really well by Courteney [Cox] and Jennifer [Aniston] and Matt [LeBlanc]. Respectful communication.”

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When she first heard of the role, Kudrow revealed that she was recently fired from a job on Frasier with famed director James “Jim” Burrows, who was also running her Friends audition. To her surprise, it was just the two of them in the casting room, and Kudrow admittedly didn’t know how it went when she left.

“I really thought, ‘I’m not his cup of tea, I’m not for him. How much of a say does he have in things?’” she laughed. “I do the audition, and he goes, ‘No notes.’ And I walk out thinking, ‘That either means, I give up, she’s helpless, or it’s, I’m perfect. No notes.’”

She ended up getting the role, but she never anticipated just how big the sitcom would become.

“Here’s what a bad judge of whether a show’s going to be successful or not I am,” she said. “I was like, ‘It’s cute. It’s not Seinfeld or sort of groundbreaking comedy anything.’ I was just glad it was on NBC because I had a recurring role on Mad About You!”

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Kudrow also revealed that playing Phoebe Buffay on Friends was challenging at first “because she [was] so different” from the rest of the group.

“One of the issues with the character was, how do we let the audience know why they’re friends with her?” she recalled, joking that she was always told to do more quirky things than her costars.

Only recently has Kudrow started re-watching Friends, which Shepard, 49, noted is playing on cable television at all times, following Matthew Perry’s death in October 2023.

“He just was so funny,” she said of Perry. “It was just this whole appreciation. I was like, ‘I’ve gotta watch all of them.’”

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Perry, who died of an accidental drug overdose, had been open about his struggle with substance use in the past. Prior to his death, he had been sober, and Kudrow said she was proud of him, despite how his life ended.

“This will sound odd,” she explained. “I’m more comforted that he was happy the day he died. He got to die happy. And to me, that was a gift.”

“I loved that Matthew I first met and the one at the end,” she added.