Lisa Kudrow is getting candid about her early days on Friends.
After the hit NBC sitcom blew up, Kudrow’s costars felt the benefit of the show’s success more than she did, according to the actress.
“Nobody cared about me,” she said of the show’s early success in a Saturday, April 4, interview with the U.K.’s Independent. “There were certain parts of [my talent agency] that just referred to me as ‘the sixth Friend.’”
Kudrow, 62, shot to fame as Phoebe Buffay in the hit comedy, starring alongside David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry.
Friends was not an immediate overnight success when it premiered during the 1994/95 television season, but it gained traction during its second season, making stars of all six main cast members.
While Kudrow was the first castmate to win an Emmy in 1998, she said, “But there was no vision for me and no expectations about the kind of career I could have. There was just, like, ‘Boy, is she lucky she got on that show.’”
Outside of Friends, Kudrow starred in various independent films until she landed a hit with Analyze This, the 1999 comedy starring Robert De Niro.
“That’s when the agents and business people started circling, wanting to put me in romantic comedies and things,” she said. “I knew that wasn’t gonna work. I’m just not adorable!”
The actress also spoke out about rumors that she was the cast member who pushed for the six stars to negotiate their salaries as a group. In Friends’ heyday, the six lead actors secured deals worth $1 million an episode.
“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.’”
Kudrow recalled thinking at the time, “Like, ‘Hey, people will think I’m really smart!’” However, in reality, “My team were like, “No, this is not good! We’re furious that they’re saying this about you.’”
Kudrow is currently starring in the third season of HBO’s The Comeback, reprising her other iconic role as Valerie Cherish. The first season aired in 2005, a year after Friends went off the air, while a second season premiered in 2014.
The third season of The Comeback has also been billed as its last.
“Luckily, unlike Valerie, we don’t have to worry about our rent, so we don’t have to make the show unless there’s something we really want to say,” show creator Michael Patrick King told the Independent.
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