Lisa Kudrow Realized ‘Friends’ Was a ‘Mental Health Service’ After 9/11

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | August 2, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | August 2, 2024 |

Lisa Kudrow has been reflecting on her time on Friends a lot recently. Last week she said she hated having a studio audience, and this week she talked to Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson for their Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast about the show’s impact on its viewers.

“I would drive home, you know, in L.A. and if I’m stopped, someone in the car next to me might look over and go, ‘Ah,’ and wave or something,” she said. “After 9/11, and it happened a few times driving home, someone’s next to me, and they just looked over, and they just looked exhausted and tired and just went, ‘Thank you,’ and it almost made me cry, and that’s where it hit me. ‘Oh no. We are actually providing a service, like a mental health service.’”

I wasn’t watching Friends after 9/11 because I was six, so I would have been watching something like Arthur or Dragon Tales, so I asked my day job boss, who frequently quotes the show and then rolls her eyes at me when I don’t understand the references, what she thought about this. I will not reveal her age here because she is a lady, but she said Kudrow is “100% right” because she “Grew up with it” and remembers “waiting and watching new episodes weekly.” Remember appointment television? Those were the days. Then, it was “always there in syndication” during her “college and young adult years.” Now, she says it’s her “emotional support show.”

“Probably the only show I can have on in the background and still be productive with work. The show I put on at night when the news is too depressing or maybe I’ve watched something too scary and need to shake it off. Everything about it is comforting. Maybe it’s my generation but I do think it holds up and younger people would love it too if they gave it a try (ahem, YOU).”

Yeah, I got it, boss. To prove her point, I asked a friend my age who I know loves Friends even though she didn’t grow up with it. She said Kudrow’s character of Phoebe is especially comforting because the group “accepts her for who she is and gives her a safe space to be weird.” That, and we watch her fall in and out of love and maintain long-term relationships and eventually “find her person and get to choose.” In other words, “she wasn’t just the weird, always single one.” Okay, well, this friend happens to be married so now I feel like she’s trying to tell me something…

Being in a show and playing a character that important to people sounds like a lot of pressure to me. Kudrow admitted that it was, and she sometimes struggled, but recalled a moment when co-star Matt LeBlanc snapped her out of it.

“I’m slacking off. I’m being lazy, and I was getting really mad at myself, and LeBlanc came. He said, ‘What’s going on with you?’ I said, ‘I’m being lazy. I’m not doing the work that I did first season, second season. I’m not doing the work I did for Phoebe, so it can’t be good,’ and he went, ‘No, you know who the character is now. You don’t need to do the work you did. You got it,’ and I went, ‘What? Oh.’”

Guess it’s time I finally give it a try.