Lisa Kudrow candidly admitted that she’s not the most popular character on Friends.
The actress spoke about her iconic character Phoebe Buffay in the hit sitcom, which also starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry.
“No one cared about me,” she said in an interview with Saturday’s Independent newspaper. “There was a part of my talent agency that just referred to me as my ‘sixth friend.'”
Although Kudrow won the 1998 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as the lovable goofball Phoebe, she said many people didn’t believe she would have long life in Hollywood.
“I had no vision, no expectations of what kind of career I could have,” she recalls. “It was like, ‘She’s lucky to be on that show.'”
“Friends” aired for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. She also reflected on playing the beloved character in a recent Q&A with Lily Tomlin for Interview magazine, noting how different she is from Phoebe in real life.
“At first, Phoebe was very distant from me,” she said. “It took a lot of effort to justify what she said and did. It was fun, not in a frustrating way.”
“Ten years have passed and she has come into me little by little,” she continued. “I tried to lighten the mood a little bit and read some books about spirituality and things and try to understand her.”
Kudrow argued that Phoebe wasn’t the “crazy” character some people perceived her to be.
“At the time, I was like, ‘How great is she? Why does she only play Ditz?’ And I thought, ‘Is she Ditz?’ To me, she wasn’t. ” she said.
“In 1994, it was like, ‘I love her.’ She’s such a great person.’ And it was like, oh, okay, that’s the Ditz for us. This is someone who is not leading the line. ”
Kudrow, 62, has been promoting the third and final season of “The Comeback,” and recently started thinking seriously about aging in Hollywood.
The actress told The Hollywood Reporter that she didn’t try Botox until she was 60, but “I’m probably done with it.”
“I’m scared that I’ll look like my grandmother someday, but I’m excited to play an older role,” she explained.
‘
