Lisa Kudrow makes heartbreaking admission about her place in Friends cast

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Lisa Kudrow recently shared that she felt like the other Friends actors sometimes overlooked her, making her feel like an afterthought.

In an interview with the Independent, Lisa Kudrow explained that her “Friends” costars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, the late Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer – became much more famous than her during the show’s run. This even affected how her own talent agency viewed and presented her, despite her paying them to find her good roles.

Kudrow said people didn’t pay much attention to her, and some at her agency only knew her as ‘the sixth Friend.’

After Friends became hugely popular starting in its second season, many of her fellow cast members landed great roles in movies. Kudrow, 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. It was as if all anyone cared about was that she’d simply landed a spot on the television show.

Even though she once felt undervalued, Kudrow has achieved lasting success after Friends, notably with her HBO series, The Comeback, which has been brought back twice.

Lisa Kudrow, one of the series’ creators, spoke with her co-creator, Michael Patrick King, for the interview.

He was surprised she wasn’t getting flooded with job offers after Friends became so popular. He also reminded people that she was the first cast member to win an Emmy, receiving the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998.

Lisa Kudrow says her career really took off after she played the wife of a psychiatrist in the 1999 comedy Analyze This, which also starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. Before that role, she hadn’t been receiving as many interesting job offers.

That’s when agents and industry professionals began approaching her with offers for roles in romantic comedies, but she doubted it would be successful, as she didn’t see herself as fitting the ‘cute’ image they were looking for.

Before she became the Phoebe Buffay we all know and adore, Lisa Kudrow was doing all sorts of things! It wasn’t like she was instantly offered amazing parts, you know? She was mostly in these smaller, independent films – I actually love ‘Clockwatchers’ from ’97, it’s so underrated! – or she’d pop up in supporting roles, like that hilarious bit she did in Albert Brooks’ ‘Mother’ back in ’96. It’s amazing to look back and see where she started, honestly. It just makes her success even more incredible!

Honestly, even though the roles weren’t huge, getting to work with Parker Posey and Toni Collette on ‘Clockwatchers’ was a dream come true! And working with Brooks – both as an actor and the director on ‘Mother’ – was just… incredible. I still get chills thinking about it!

Kudrow believes reports suggesting she led the charge in getting her fellow cast members to negotiate their contracts as a group before season three actually hurt her standing.

The show’s main actors successfully negotiated a deal with Warner Bros. Initially, the studio had tried to negotiate with each actor separately, hoping to pay some of them less. However, the cast secured equal pay for everyone, and their salaries increased with each season. This resulted in a significant raise, jumping from $125,000 per episode to $750,000 per episode in seasons seven and eight.

By the ninth and tenth seasons, the actors were earning an incredible $1 million per episode – a level of pay that’s very uncommon in television.

Kudrow says her agency was annoyed by talk that she’d led the successful negotiations, despite her telling them she wasn’t the one who did it.

‘I absolutely was not the ringleader,’ Kudrow said. ‘And that was reported, and it wasn’t true. My team were very angry about that. It was leaked sort of as a warning to other clients like, “Don’t do something like that.”‘ 

She wanted people to believe she was intelligent due to the successful negotiations. However, her team strongly disagreed, expressing their anger at the implication that she was taking sole credit.

It was actually quite ironic that her agents were set to profit handsomely from her good fortune, since they typically receive about ten percent of their clients’ earnings.

In a recent Interview Magazine interview with Lily Tomlin, Courteney Cox explained that, although she’s strongly associated with the character Phoebe, Phoebe wasn’t really based on her personality.

She explained that initially, Phoebe seemed very different from her. It required effort to understand Phoebe’s words and actions, but she emphasized it wasn’t frustrating—it was actually enjoyable.

Over time, though, the part began to shift as she became more comfortable with it. 

Over ten years, I started to understand her a little bit and let some of her personality influence me. I became more lighthearted and even started reading books about spirituality, just trying to figure out what made her tick.

Kudrow also challenged the perception that she only plays ditzy characters, and shared that she doesn’t even see her character Phoebe that way anymore.

Back in 1994, people would say things like, “I love her, but she’s a bit clueless.” At the time, that’s what we meant by ‘clueless’ – someone who didn’t conform or follow expectations, she explained.

Kudrow is currently promoting the third and final season of her HBO series The Comeback.

She plays Valerie Cherish, a fading actress trying to get her career back on track, in the show’s comedic, documentary-style format.

The show’s first season came out in 2005, shortly after Friends finished. However, it took almost ten years for a second season to be made, finally appearing in 2014.

Okay, so the third and final season is back, and it picks up with Valerie right where we left her – still working hard to get her career back on track. It’s been a while since we last saw her, and she’s definitely facing some challenges, but she’s not giving up!

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2026-04-06 07:19