Pretty much everyone knows about Friends. (Or F.R.I.E.N.D.S, as the popular opening credits spell it.) And that means multiple generations know about the six characters – Rachel, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Ross, and Phoebe – who became household names, almost as if they were not just each other's friends, but the public's as well. After 10 seasons of entertaining the masses, the show closed its curtains in 2004. We can safely say that the end of the last millennium and the beginning of the new one were closely intertwined with the show.
In fact, when Friends first aired in 1994, 22 million people viewed its first episode. A figure that became 52 million when the final episode rolled by.
Given such massive numbers and such a tremendous impact the show has had on that generation and continues to still through streaming platforms, any actor associated with that show benefited tremendously from it. And Lisa Kudrow was no different. More so because unlike the character of Phoebe Buffay that she played on Friends, Lisa Kudrow is actually a really sharp woman in real life. Did that make the audition process a little easier for her compared to her audition competition? Here's what she had to say about it.
Lisa Kudrow Auditioned Twice For The Role Of Phoebe
Lisa Kudrow was the only person in the cast who auditioned twice for her role. And not because she wasn't as good as the others.
The reason had something to do with NBC's sitcom Frasier.
The director of Friends, Jimmy Burrows, was on the production team of Frasier when Lisa was fired from the cast. (He was the one who fired her.) And he remembered her face when she showed up to audition for Friends.
“I had to do a special audition for Jim Burrows... I had to go in and read for [him],” Kudrow said.
She thought it was standard procedure, but found out later she was the only one who had to do it to make sure Jimmy was okay with her playing Phoebe.
Kudrow's woes weren't over once she got cast as Phoebe.
When she realized Jimmy Burrows was going to direct the pilot episode, she felt defeated. She felt he was intentionally sabotaging her when he asked her to do her Phoebe monologue from under the table.
She went along with it though.
“I did the best I could," Kudrow said. "And then after the run-through, David Crane says, ‘Lisa, it's fun that you're under the table’ — as if it was my idea — ‘But I'm not sure that it works.’”
Long story short, it worked out for her in the end. (The table scene didn't make it.)
Lisa Kudrow Wanted To Quit Friends After Season 3
In a YouTube interview, Lisa shared that she was getting tired of playing Phoebe Buffay after a while.
"I had played dumb girls, for sure, but it wasn’t really me... I feel like I tricked ’em at the audition,” Kudrow said.
“I was the only one who could cope with the audition process and that’s how I got it, I think. So I had to work hard at being Phoebe. I was struggling so much [Matt] LeBlanc was like, 'What's going on with you?',” Kudrow shared. And then he told her to not work so hard with the character and just relax.
“He went, 'You've been doing this f***ing character for three years. You're working too hard... Relax.' He was right."
She decided to stay, which gave us the gold mine of watching her son watch Friends for the first time.
The Cast Did Something Unheard Of After Growing Close
Working together for 10 years without an actor leaving mid-season is rare in the entertainment industry. But the cast of Friends managed it because they stuck together right from the start.
Matthew Perry, who played Chandler, wrote in his memoir that it was David Schwimmer (who played Ross) who suggested they re-negotiate their contracts together so everyone got equal pay, something that was unheard of then.
He carried them financially through the 10 years of Friends. And by the time the show's 8th season rolled by, each actor was making $1 million per episode.
"His decision served to make us take care of each other through what turned out to be a myriad of stressful network negotiations, and it gave us a tremendous amount of power," Perry wrote.
Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Courtney Cox spoke about the same during an interview on The Howard Stern Show in 2021.
"We didn't engender bitterness or rivalry within each other,” Kudrow said. And that supportiveness benefited everyone, leading to some strong friendships.
And with a net worth of $130 million (according to CelebrityNetWorth), the decision to not leave Friends after the 3rd season turned out to be a very lucrative decision for Kudrow.
The financial incentive alone probably made playing the role of Phoebe Buffay a lot more bearable.
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