Lisa Kudrow Gets Candid About Hollywood’s Writers Rooms, Especially on ‘Friends’
If a television show is one tenth as popular as F.R.I.E.N.D.S, then it would be the sort of smash hit that network execs love.
The famous sitcom about a group of six pals living and loving in New York City reached a level of popularity that was only really possible for a slim period of time in the nineties and early oughts, when the internet could amplify media but wasn’t jam-packed with millions of hours worth content to compete against. For other examples of this phenomenon, see Harry Potter.
Part of the charm of F.R.I.E.N.D.S was the belief that the people that made the show, whether it be the leads, the showrunners, or everyone in between, were in fact friends. However, Phoebe Buffay actor Lisa Kudrow has claimed in a new Times interview that the culture of the show was far from convivial.
“There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes,” said Kudrow, when discussing the toxic behavior. She made a point of noting the pressure that filming entailed, and the ire that the writers would flay the cast with if they messed up a line or a joke didn’t land.
“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 bitch f***ing read?'” Kudrow said.
While not excusable, that kind of reaction can at least be explained as a desire for high standards on a blockbuster show. However, Buffay also discussed some more disturbing elements of making the show, like the mostly male writers’ room openly discussing sexual fantasies involving her co-leads Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.
Buffay’s accusations will be old news to those who remember the lawsuit brought by Amaani Lyle, a former writers’ assistant on the show who sued Warner Bros. over sexual and racial harassment she claimed to have received on set. As it is, F.R.I.E.N.D.S continues to net Buffay around 15 million dollars per year, so she might very well think the cattiness was worth it. Whether or not that’s true for the hundreds of others who worked on the show is probably a different story.
(featured image: NBC)
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