Lisa Kudrow lifts lid on 'brutal' Friends filming sessions and consequences if they forgot their lines
Lisa Kudrow from Friends has slammed misogyny from the writers of the hit show, stating that the ‘mostly male’ writing staff would fantasise about her female co-stars in their time off and treat the cast ‘brutally’.
Similarly to her five co-stars Kudrow was an unknown name when she was cast as Phoebe in Friends, but she is now one of the most recognisable people in the world as a result of the massive success of the show.
She has been part of some very successful shows too, including her most recent TV outing The Comeback where she plays an ex-A List celebrity trying to rekindle her fame.
In promoting this though she, of course, was asked about Friends, and was far less courteous than she normally is when discussing the hit show.
Kudrow said the Friends writers would call her a b*tch if she got their lines wrong
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Kudrow spoke to The Times and stated that there would be serious consequences if they got a line wrong.
She pointed to the fact that they would record ‘in front of a live audience of 400’ and stated that the writer’s group would loudly berate the actors if they messed up a line or didn’t get the reaction they wanted.
She 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*tch f*cking read? She’s not even trying. She f***ed up my line.’”
The actor claimed writers would discuss sexual fantasies about her co-stars, and there’s a previous lawsuit to back it up
She stated that the writer’s room for the show was 12-15 people and ‘mostly men’, adding that the writers would ‘be up late discussing their sexual fantasies about Jennifer [Aniston] and Courteney [Cox]’.
Kudrow called the experience with writers ‘intense’, but added: “It could be brutal, but these guys — and it was mostly men in there — were sitting up until 3am trying to write the show so my attitude was, ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter,’ ” Kudrow says, waving her hands in front of her face with Phoebe-like distaste.”
This claim was backed up by a writer’s assistant who sued the executives behind the show in 1999, Amaani Lyle.
She sued for sexual harassment after writer’s made her transcribe their brainstorming sessions, which included them discussing graphic sexual fantasies about the writers.
Her case was dismissed, but this wasn’t due to it being found that these brainstorming sessions did not take place. Instead, it was dismissed citing 1st amendment rights for freedom of speech, with the sessions considered to be a ‘vital’ part of writing for the show.
LADbible group have contacted Warner Brothers and NBC for comment.
Topics: Lisa Kudrow, Friends, TV, TV and Film, Celebrity
Michael Slavin