Lisa Kudrow admits Friends stars needed to ‘work hard’ to turn into friends in actual life

Although they played a group of close pals on the show, the cast of Friends didn’t hit it off straight away according to Lisa Kudrow.

The 61-year-old actor spoke about the popularity of the comedy sitcom thirty years after it was first released in an interview with Dax Shephard on the Armchair Expert podcast.

The show, created by Marta Kauffman, first aired in 1994 and ran for ten seasons and 236 episodes until its finale in 2004.

Friends became a cultural phenomenon, particularly among the millennial generation, who followed the lives of its stars as closely in real life as they did on TV. It starred David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, and Kudrow.

But Kudrow, who played quirky and eccentric Phoebe Buffay, said that the off-screen friendship that ensued came with a lot of effort.

She said the team “worked hard at being friends”, adding “If someone said something or did something, it didn’t get too big because it was, ‘Can I talk to you?’”

Although, true to her awkward on-screen nature, Kudrow said it was “usually not her” who would start the conversation as she “never knew that was allowed” at the time.

“I had to learn to be like, ‘Can I talk to you about something?’” she explained.

Kudrow also touched on the death of Matthew Perry last year. The actor, who played sarcastic accountant Chandler Bing on the show, died of the “acute effects of ketamine” aged 54.

“This will sound odd,” Kudrow said about the death. “I’m more comforted that he was happy the day he died. He got to die happy. And to me, that was a gift.”

Although Shephard approached the subject of Perry’s struggles with addiction, Kudrow said “I loved that Matthew I first met and the one at the end, because God love him, this is you, and I love you. I understand, and so did he.”

Since his death, the authorities have been working to understand how Perry got ahold of the drug, which is legal and usually used as an anaesthetic but can be abused when used recreationally. Five people, including two doctors, were charged with his death earlier this year.