Lisa Kudrow has revealed how much she and her Friends co-stars still make from the show, more than 20 years after The Last One aired as the grand finale of the sitcom
Lisa Kudrow has revealed how much she and her Friends co-stars still make from the show. The actress, 62, found global fame when she took on the part of Phoebe Buffay in the now-classic sitcom in 1994, and over the course of 10 seasons she starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer and the late Matthew Perry.
More than 20 years after the grand finale, titled The Last One, was aired, the programme has gone on to be a mainstay in the world of pop culture, and has become a billion-dollar franchise with endless lines of merchandise released around the world, every episode frequently repeated on linear television and streams on Netflix.
Asked why she continues to rake in $20 million a year in residuals, she said: “Because Phoebe Buffay was so great?” The star also elaborated on just why the show is still a staple all these years later, noting that she rewatched it all herself when her co-star died in late 2023 at the age of 54.
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Speaking to The Times, Lisa added: “After Matthew died I watched the show again. Before, I only saw what I did wrong or could have done better, but for the first time I truly appreciated just how great it was.
“Because there was a genius at work. And whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again. I felt I did OK, but Jennifer and Courteney? Amazing. David and Matt? They had me laughing so hard. And then Matthew – he was just beyond us all.”
It all comes after Lisa made the heartbreaking admission that “nobody cared” about her in a professional sense in the years after she found fame.
Despite being the first member of the cast to win an Emmy – for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998 – Lisa says it wasn’t until she starred alongside Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal in 1999 comedy Analyze This that the offers began to roll in.
She told The Independent: “Nobody cared about me. There were certain parts of [my talent agency] that just referred to me as “the sixth Friend.”‘
Lisa added: “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.”‘
Lisa, who is starring in the third and final season of her HBO series The Comeback, recently opened up about her role as Phoebe, saying the character was “very far” from who she was as a person. But over the space of 10 years, Lisa says “a little bit of her came into me.”
She told Interview Magazine : “At first, Phoebe was very, very far from me. It took a lot of work to justify the things she would say and do. Not in an irritating way – it was fun.
“Over the course of 10 years, a little bit of her came into me. I lightened up a little more and read some books on spirituality and things, just to try to understand her.”
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