Lisa Kudrow says the Friends writing team were ‘mostly men’ who ‘stayed up late at night to discuss their sexual fantasies about Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox’

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Oh my gosh, I just read this and I’m SO upset! Apparently, Lisa Kudrow said the Friends writers – mostly guys – would actually talk about their, like, sexual fantasies about her and the other actresses while they were still at work! Can you believe it? Working late into the night, just… discussing that about the people they were working with. It’s just… awful to think about, and makes me see the show in a totally different light now. Poor Lisa, and all the actresses, honestly. It’s just creepy and unacceptable!

The actress rose to fame playing the quirky masseuse Phoebe Buffay on the popular American sitcom, appearing in all episodes throughout its successful ten-year run.

Despite the show’s lighthearted nature, filming was actually quite demanding. Each 22-minute episode took up to six hours to shoot in front of a live audience in Los Angeles, which was a challenge considering the show was supposed to be set in New York City.

‘There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes,’ Kudrow, 62, told The Times. 

It’s easy to forget we were performing in front of a live audience of 400 people. If I stumbled over one of the writers’ lines, or if it didn’t land well, they’d become incredibly critical, sometimes saying things like, ‘Can’t she even read the lines properly? It feels like she’s not even trying, and she ruined my joke.’

Kudrow says the show’s female leads, especially Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox, were often the subject of explicit discussions about sex by the mostly male writers.

She described how the men would stay up late sharing intimate fantasies about Jennifer and Courteney, calling the conversations very intense.

It was a really tough process, with the writers – mostly men – working late into the night, until 3:00am, to get the show done. My feeling was, let people talk about me – it doesn’t bother me as long as they’re getting the work done.

The actress had previously shared that she went back to work just a few days after her son, Julian, was born in 1998.

She recently recalled that just ten days after giving birth to her son, she was already back at work, appearing on the Tonight Show and attending a meeting about the film Analyze This, as she shared with CBS Sunday Morning in April.

After giving birth to her son on May 7th, she recalled her agent reassuring her, ‘You’ll have plenty of time to recover. You don’t start filming until July, and it’s only May, so you’re fine.’

Despite initial plans, the actress actually finished filming the high-budget comedy, featuring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, much sooner than expected.

She remembered Billy Crystal saying during their meeting, “You look great, but are you sure you’re up for this? When did you have the baby?” She had told him the date, and he responded, “Okay, good. We’ll start rehearsals on Thursday.”

Her loved ones even encouraged her to return to work.

I recall when my husband’s parents came to visit from France, and my parents were also there. Everyone encouraged me to go ahead and do it.

‘And I said, “But it’s wrong. I have a newborn.”‘

Her team told her not to worry, explaining that a childcare professional would accompany her to care for the baby, and that the baby wouldn’t recall any of it.

Looking back, the actress admitted it was crazy to return to work so quickly after having a baby.

Kudrow even shared that she suffered a ‘smidge’ of postpartum depression.

She admitted she was thinking, “This is crazy,” but felt she had to trust everyone else’s judgment because she wasn’t thinking clearly. She explained she was dealing with hormonal changes and felt a little down.

Kudrow shares Julian, 27, with husband Michel Stern, 67.

The actress told The Independent that her “Friends” co-stars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and the late Matthew Perry – were much more popular than her while the show was airing.

She felt overlooked and unimportant. People at her talent agency sometimes dismissively called her “the sixth Friend,” as if she wasn’t a significant individual.

After Friends became hugely popular starting with its second season, many of Kudrow’s fellow cast members began landing prominent movie roles. However, Kudrow felt she wasn’t getting the same opportunities.

Honestly, growing up, I didn’t have much guidance about what I could do with my life. It wasn’t about having a dream career or a path forward, it was just… relief that I’d landed something – in my case, a TV show. People acted like being on television was enough, like I’d won the lottery just by getting that opportunity, instead of seeing it as a starting point.

Even though she once felt overlooked, Kudrow has gone on to achieve lasting success with roles in several shows, notably her HBO series, The Comeback.

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2026-04-28 11:04