Actress Lisa Kudrow recently opened up about the nasty and cruel behavior she contended with from Friends’ male writers. Lisa, who played Phoebe Buffay on the hit comedy, revealed the contentious atmosphere behind the scenes.
Lisa Kudrow reveals “mean” and “brutal” behavior
In an interview with The Times of London, published on Thursday, April 25, Lisa revealed, “There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes. Don’t forget we were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers’ lines or it didn’t get the perfect response, they could be like, ‘Can’t the bitch f*cking read? She’s not even trying. She f*cked up my line.’”
During that time, the writers’ room was staffed with between 12 and 15 writers, most of them men. She said that “the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies.” These involved cast members Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel, and Courteney Cox, who played Monica. Lisa describes the atmosphere as “intense.”
This resulted in an environment between the sitcom’s writers and its stars that “could be brutal. But these guys — and it was mostly men in there — were sitting up until 3 a.m. trying to write the show so my attitude was, ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter,’” the Emmy winner recalled.
In addition to Jennifer and Courteney, Lisa’s co-stars included Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Matthew Perry. Matthew passed away October 28, 2023 due to the acute effects of ketamine.
“Whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again,” Lisa said, adding, that she’ll “never say anything bad about Friends because it’s still incredible work. There are plenty of shows with big-name comedians from that time and they are not funny, but Friends is.”
Lisa’s series, The Comeback, is now streaming on HBO.
TELL US – IS LISA’S REVELATION ABOUT THE FRIENDS’ WRITERS SURPRISING?
