Actor Lisa Kudrow said there was “definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes” during her 10-season run on Friends. While recalling her experience, she said that the show’s writing staff, who were “mostly men”, could be harsh with the cast and spoke crudely about her female co-stars.
In an interview with The Times of London, Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay on the NBC sitcom, said the writers reprimanded actors for forgetting lines or for not getting the response they wanted from the live audience. She also revealed that, in the writers’ room, “the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies about Jennifer (Aniston) and Courteney (Cox). It was intense.”
“There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes,” Kudrow said. “Don’t forget we were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers’ lines, or it didn’t get the perfect response, they could be like, ‘Can’t the b***h f*****g read? She’s not even trying. She f****d up my line.'”
Kudrow described the writers’ treatment of the cast as “brutal”, but said she did not pay much attention to it because much of it happened behind closed doors.
“Oh, it could be brutal, but these guys — and it was mostly men in there — were sitting up until 3 am, trying to write the show so my attitude was, ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter’,” the actor added.
Kudrow is also known for acting in popular films such as Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997), Easy A (2010), The Opposite of Sex (1998), Analyze This (1999), The Girl on the Train (2016), Booksmart (2019). Her last theatrical release was the American black horror comedy The Parenting (2025).
Apart from Kudrow, Anniston and Cox, Friends also featured David Schwimmer, Matt Le Blanc and late actor Mathew Perry in crucial roles.
Anniston was last seen in the Apple TV Plus series – The Morning Show Season 4. The show has also been renewed for the fifth season.
