Lisa Kudrow opened up about her realization that Friends was there to support individuals during difficult times. The actress discussed her latest series, Time Bandits, on Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson’s podcast, SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name. During the podcast, Kudrow revealed during the talk how she came to see that Friends was having an impact on people.
When thinking back on how she managed the kind of fame she received from the sitcom, Kudrow, 61, mentioned that one of her memories from the show is the weeks following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. She recalled how she would drive home, and if she is stopped, someone in the car next to her might look over and wave or something.
The actress further added, “After 9/11, and it happened a few times driving home, someone’s next to me, and they just looked over, and they just looked exhausted and just went, ‘Thank you,’ and it almost made me cry, and that’s where it hit me. Oh no. We are actually providing a service, like a mental health service.”
She talked about how her family helped keep her grounded and in check as she faced the popularity of the show when it became popular in the late 1990s.
Lisa Kudrow also talked about a moment on Friends when she felt like co-star Matt LeBlanc was supporting her through a period when she felt like she wasn’t giving the show as much effort as she had when it first started.
Kudrow was cast as Pheobe on Friends, a character she would portray throughout the show’s ten seasons. Kudrow won the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy in 1998, becoming the first member of the cast to do so.
Friends ended in 2004, but Kudrow couldn’t watch the show until this year because she thought it was too embarrassing. But she told The Hollywood Reporter that she started watching the show again after co-star Matthew Perry passed away to keep his memory.