The One with Lisa Kudrow: 20 Years Since The Finale

Today marks 20 years since the final episode of Friends aired on NBC. Earlier that year, I had the opportunity to interview Lisa Kudrow as part of a UCLA class called “The Art of the Interview” taught by Larry Grobel.

Kudrow was in the middle of filming the final season of the show that made her a star. Our conversation was wide-ranging, but in honor of this Friends anniversary, I’m sharing a never-before-published excerpt from when we spoke about the show and its impending conclusion.

It was clear from the moment we met that Kudrow is a very private person (“I’m not that interested in sharing who I am”) but she did open up about the show ending and about Matthew Perry’s struggles with addiction (“He’s fighting every day”).

Kudrow had her doubts about the longevity of the Friends phenomenon (“I think that will all die down”), a prediction that now seems quaint in light of the enduring popularity of the show. To be fair, no one could have foreseen just how much Friends would benefit from the advent of streaming, which has helped the series resonate with viewers who weren’t even alive during the age of “Must See TV.”

At the time, it felt only natural to begin by asking Kudrow what she thought about the end of a television era:

Q: This is the tenth and final season of Friends. Are you already feeling nostalgic for the show?

A: There are times, yeah, when it catches up with me. But for the most part, I feel nothing. I don't know how we'd be able to rehearse and then shoot the show if we were conscious of "This is the last time we're going to do a fifth episode Tuesday run-through," which Jennifer Aniston will sometimes want to say because she's all about feelings.

Q: Have you thought at all about what that last night of shooting will be like?

A: I have but I don't know what good it will do. You have to just go through it. I recently went to a wedding and sat next to a director named Barnet Kellman, who's been around for a while. He was talking to me about the Mary Tyler Moore show. Their last episode, that last week they were working, they all started fighting. A lot. It was bad. And on Murphy Brown, they were also fighting the whole last week. I could see that happening with us just because we've gotten along ridiculously well for ten years.

Q: If you were writing the Friends finale, what would happen?

A: I just want everyone to be happy. I don't want everyone marooned somewhere or "It was a dream." I hope Phoebe marries Mike. I would love that for her. I hope Monica and Chandler get a baby and I hope Ross and Rachael just end up together or kill each other and just put an end to it [laughs]. As for Joey, hopefully he'll move to Los Angeles and kick off his series.

Q: Did NBC approach you with a spin-off for Phoebe?

A: No.

Q: Would you do television again?

A: Yeah. I like television and I would if something right came along but I don't think it will. If it's not Phoebe, I think it's tough for a television audience to accept an actor as someone else. Mary Tyler Moore did it. Bob Newhart did it. But then that's it. Everyone' s tried, everyone from Cheers tried. Everyone from Seinfeld tried.

Q: What will you miss most about doing the show?

A: Seeing all those people every day. They're all funny and they make me laugh. It's nice to be able to laugh that hard at work. And then personally, I just like a schedule. I like waking up and knowing where I'm going. I like routine.

Q: Your co-star Matthew Perry has struggled with substance abuse problems while on the show, How did the cast react to this crisis?

A: I have to think about what I'm comfortable discussing with you because that's Matthew's story. I think most of us learned from that experience. We got to be very intimate with addiction and got to learn that it is a disease and a lot of times a terminal disease, which is scary. It was mostly a sad time. There was a lot of time spent figuring out "What can we do to save his life, if we can at all?" Our producers put us in touch with Al-Anon people and others that could counsel us.

Q: Do you think you became closer friends as a result?

A: Yeah. Well, it's hard to say, we were all very close anyway. We had been through something intense just becoming that kind of famous. That made us very close because we got to share that experience that no one else close to us had experienced. And then this also made us go through something, kind of with Matthew, but Matthew really had to do this on his own. And he did, which is incredible. Because the odds are against him. He's fighting every day.

Q: Everyone else has paired up on the show at some time or another. Why do you think the writers haven't given Phoebe a romance with one of the core group?

A: They thought it was too tight that we all just pair up. Matt LeBlanc and I always thought, "We'll end up together. Cool!" We even pitched to the writers, "What if at the end of the series you show some flashbacks where it seems obvious that we've just been sleeping together the whole time. Not a relationship. Sleeping together.

Q: How will you explain the Friends phenomenon and your fame to your son when he' s older?

A: By that time, I don't think I will be. Because the show will be over and I do think once you're out of peoples' living rooms, you're out of peoples' living rooms. So I think that'll all die down and that'll be good.

Q: Are you assuming that Friends is not going to be syndicated for the rest of your life?

A: But even so, there's not the anticipation of that brand new episode. It's not all over primetime television. It's a different quality. An actor on a rerun is different.

Q: Have you accepted that you will always be known as Phoebe?

A: Yeah. But I am already more fulfilled by other things that I've done, like The Opposite of Sex, Wonderland, and Romy and Michelle. It's also OK for anyone to only know me as Phoebe.

Q: Was there ever any pressure on Friends to be thin or look a certain way?

A: The only pressure was looking at Courtney and Jennifer every day. It's probably not unlike the pressure of young girls who are reading magazines and looking at their friends who are thin. Courtney and Jennifer are thin and small-framed. They're not short either. They're like "5'5" but they're small. And they wear these clothes that are a size two or zero.

Q: Are there any Friends souvenirs you're hanging on to from the show?

A: I'm keeping my rings, Phoebe's rings that she wears.

Q: Last question. Will we see you on the Joey spin-off next year?

A: I don't know. If I'm asked... then I'll see.