Why Lisa Kudrow Struggled to Befriend Her 'Friends' Co-Stars

Central Perk’s most iconic group of best friends might have been inseparable in the beloved sitcom series, but Lisa Kudrow just revealed that that special dynamic wasn’t always there in real life. While the Friends cast is still close to this day, even three decades after the series’ end, the Emmy award-winning actress–who memorably played free-spirited Phoebe Buffay–revealed that she found it “hard” to become friends with her co-stars.

On the December 9 episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, the No Good Deed star opened up about the “work” that went into building their “six-way friendship” off-screen–and how she sometimes struggled with broaching issues with her cast mates.

“If someone said something or did something, it didn’t get too big because it was, ‘Can I talk to you?’” Kudrow shared. “I had to learn to be like, ‘Can I talk to you about something?’ Because I never knew that was allowed.”

Kudrow revealed that while it wasn’t easy, she ultimately learned a lot from her co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and the late Matthew Perry, adding, “I saw it modeled really well by Courteney and Jennifer and Matt: respectful communication.”

A lot went into the group’s real-life friendships, and Kudrow opened up about a secret 2014 cast reunion—long before the show’s 25th reunion episode in 2019. "It was so good,” she said about the meeting on a December 10 episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast. “We'd only had dinner, the six of us, once before since the show ended.”

When Ferguson asked her when it had happened, she revealed that they’d gotten together “ten years” after the show ended. However, she said it felt like time hadn’t passed at all during the “fantastic” meet-up.

“It was like we didn't miss a beat,” she continued. “Just us at someone's house and had dinner and didn't miss a beat.”

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