Lisa Kudrow says Friends may have been filmed illegally as she recalls ‘exhausting’ nights shooting into the early hours whilst pregnant

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As a huge Friends fan, I was really surprised to hear Lisa Kudrow talk about how tough filming was! She mentioned they often shot all night, and it got her thinking that maybe, just maybe, they weren’t following all the rules and regulations for working hours. It’s a bit shocking to think about, but it explains a lot about how tired they sometimes looked!

The 62-year-old actress, famous for playing Phoebe Buffay on the popular sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, revealed that filming the show took much longer than most television series.

Lisa shared on the Table Manners podcast that filming was incredibly demanding, even during her pregnancy with her son, Julian, who is now 27 years old.

Lisa explained that while most half-hour shows took about two or three hours to film, theirs consistently took six hours or more.

‘God, you had a patient audience,’ co-host Lennie Ware said.

‘We had two audiences. We had an audience that was waiting outside,’ Lisa replied.

‘You must have been exhausted,’ Lennie said to which Lisa replied: ‘Yeah!’

‘How old were you when you were doing it then?’ Lennie asked.

Lisa explained that filming began around the time she found out she was pregnant, and she was often exhausted. They frequently worked late, sometimes until 2 AM.

‘How does that work with like unions and stuff?’ Lennie’s daughter and co-host Jessie Ware asked.

“That’s a great question,” Lisa said, sounding unsure of how it had happened.

‘What about the crew and everything?’ Lennie asked.

‘They were there at 10 in the morning. I guess everyone got overtime,’ Lisa said. 

The actress recently hinted that she felt like less of a priority than her fellow cast members on Friends.

Lisa felt that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and the late Matthew Perry became much more popular than she was while they were all starring on the show.

She told the Independent that people didn’t take her seriously, and some at her talent agency dismissively called her “the sixth Friend.”

After Friends became hugely popular starting with its second season, many of her fellow actors landed great roles in movies. Lisa, however, felt she wasn’t getting the same opportunities.

She explained that no one helped her think about her future or what she could achieve professionally. People just assumed she was fortunate to be on the show.

Although Lisa Kudrow initially felt undervalued at the start of her career, she’s gone on to achieve lasting success, notably with her HBO show, The Comeback, and other projects.

Lisa, one of the creators of the show, interviewed with her co-creator, Michael Patrick King, as the third season approaches.

He seemed surprised to discover she wasn’t overwhelmed with job offers following the popularity of Friends. He also noted that she was the first cast member to win an Emmy, receiving the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998.

Lisa says her career really took off after she played the wife of a psychiatrist in the 1999 comedy Analyze This, which featured Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. Before that role, she hadn’t been getting such interesting offers.

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2026-04-08 21:07