Why Lisa Kudrow Was 'Irritated' by Laughter of Friends Studio Audience: 'They'd Been Laughing Too Long'

Lisa Kudrow is opening up about her frustration with the studio audience while filming Friends.

When asked about her feelings about the studio audience on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Kudrow — who played Phoebe Buffay on the hit NBC sitcom — shared that she became annoyed “because they were laughing for too long. It wasn’t that funny. That’s why.”

“It wasn’t an honest response and it irritated me. Now you’re just ruining the timing of the rest of the show,” she explained. “There are other lines. Sometimes I would just look out if they’d been laughing too long, and go, ‘Come on’. Really angry.”

Kudrow, 60, revealed that she was focused on viewers at home rather than the studio audience while filming.

“A TV show is not for the studio audience,” she explained. “It is made for the TV viewers at home. That’s who we are in service to. If it was a stage play, yeah, laugh as long as you want. I’ll figure out things to keep my character busy waiting to continue with it. That’s fine.” 

She continued, “It’s being filmed and now I’m just standing there … you do like nod, ‘Yeah, I said that.’ It’s terrible. They instructed our audience not to do anything like that, I think.”

Kudrow went on to share that each episode of the hit NBC sitcom — which ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 — would take six to eight hours to shoot. She recalled that the cast was required to do “so many takes” that the audience would eventually “stop laughing,” which led writers to believe the jokes weren’t working. 

“But it worked the first time!” Kudrow shared. “All I knew is you’re going to take the laugh track from the first take and move it to whatever take this is. Who is suffering because they’re not laughing? I am okay if they aren’t laughing as hard. We can keep going.”

The comments after her costar Jennifer Aniston revealed on Variety's Actors on Actors series revealed that Kudrow wasn’t a fan of the studio audience.

“Lisa Kudrow, by the way, hated when the audience laughed,” Aniston admitted. 

“She’d be like, ‘I’m not done! It’s not that funny!’” Aniston jokingly added.

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Friends is available to stream on Max.