Lisa Kudrow Says She Realized ‘Friends’ Provided a “Mental Health Service” for Viewers After 9/11
Lisa Kudrow is opening up about the moment she realized Friends was helping people through tough moments in their lives.
The actress stopped by Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson’s podcast, SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name, to discuss her current series, Time Bandits. During the conversation, Kudrow opened up about how she realized Friends was having an impact on people.
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“I would drive home, you know, in L.A. and if I’m stopped, someone in the car next to me might look over and go, ‘Ah,’ and wave or something,” the Space Force actress said on the podcast. “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 tired 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 explained how she dealt with the fame that came with the show when it took off in the late ’90s, noting that her family helped ground her and kept her in check.
Elsewhere in the podcast appearance, Kudrow recalled a time on Friends when she felt like she wasn’t putting as much work into the series a few seasons in as she had when it first started, and co-star Matt LeBlanc helped her through it.
“I’m slacking off. I’m being lazy, and I was getting really mad at myself, and LeBlanc came. He said, ‘What’s going on with you?'” she recounted. “I said, ‘I’m being lazy. I’m not doing the work that I did first season, second season. I’m not doing the work I did for Phoebe, so it can’t be good,’ and he went, ‘No, you know who the character is now. You don’t need to do the work you did. You got it,’ and I went, ‘What? Oh.'”
Friends ended in 2004, but it wasn’t until this year that Kudrow was able to watch the show because she felt like it was too embarrassing. However, following the passing of co-star Matthew Perry, she told The Hollywood Reporter she began revisiting the show to keep his memory alive.
“It’s just celebrating how hilarious he was — and that is what I want to remember [about him],” she said, adding that she also enjoys seeing how funny her co-stars are. “I’m blown away by Courteney Cox. I’m blown away by Jen [Aniston]. Matthew, obviously, is just uniquely hilarious. No one ever knew that cadence or comedic rhythm before him. Matt LeBlanc is hilarious. And David Schwimmer, too. Sometimes I even laugh at what I’ve done.”
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