Lisa Kudrow recalls the behind-the-scenes help she received to master the role of Phoebe Buffay.
The 61-year-old Golden Globe nominee credited her Friends co-star Matt LeBlanc with helping her overcome some of the fatigue she felt with her beloved character.
She admitted on SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name that it took her “if not a year and a half, maybe two seasons, before I felt like I had Phoebe under control.”
“The things she said were so outrageously illogical that in order to justify them, you know, I was like, ‘Ugh!'” Kudrow said.
“It took me a long time to figure out, well, how could I possibly think this is true or a good idea or a reasonable thing to say?”
Lisa Kudrow credited her Friends co-star Matt LeBlanc for helping her overcome some fatigue she had with her beloved character.
She admitted on SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name that it took her “if not a year and a half, maybe two seasons, before I felt like I had Phoebe under control.”
Kudrow recalled that around Season 2 or 3, “I thought, ‘Something’s wrong,’ because I’m not doing the job I was doing.
‘I was just chilling. I was being lazy and getting really mad at myself, and LeBlanc came up to me and said, “What’s wrong with you?”
”I said, ‘I’m lazy,”’ she continued. ”I’m not doing the job I did in season one, or season two. I’m not doing the job I did for Phoebe, so it can’t be good.”
“And he said, ‘No, you already know who the character is. You don’t need to do the work that you did. You got it.’ And I said, ‘What? Oh,'” Kudrow added.
After co-host Ted Danson noted that LeBlanc, 57, made her feel “relaxed,” Kudrow said, “That was enough.
“It was like someone shook me because I was getting hysterical,” she continued.
‘I wasn’t getting hysterical, but when you get hysterical, someone slaps you back. And you’re like, ‘Oh, thank you. That’s what I needed.’
After her co-star Matthew Perry passed away at age 54 in October, Kudrow revealed last month that she had started re-watching Friends.
“I couldn’t really watch it because it was too embarrassing. But if I do it about Matthew, that’s fine,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kudrow recalled that around Season 2 or 3, “I thought, ‘Something’s wrong,’ because I’m not doing the job I was doing.”
“And he said, ‘No, you already know who the character is. You don’t need to do the work that you did. You got it,’ and I said, ‘What? Oh,'” Kudrow added.
After her co-star Matthew Perry passed away at age 54 in October, Kudrow revealed last month that she had started re-watching Friends.
“And it’s just about celebrating how funny he was, and that’s what I want to remember (about him),” Kudrow added. “Nobody knew that cadence or that comedic timing before him.”
Kudrow reflected on her days on set with Perry: ‘Basically, you’re laughing all day between scenes, because these are funny people.
“And especially someone like Matthew, whose goal was: how many laughs can I get in real life every day? So we were always laughing so hard that tears were streaming down our faces.”
Friends ran for 10 seasons on NBC from 1994 to 2004, and the cast reunited for a reunion special on HBO Max in 2021.
