FRIENDS: Lisa Kudrow Wanted To QUIT After Season 3 & Thanks To This ‘Friend’ She Didn’t (Pic credit – Getty Images / Lisa Kudrow )
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FRIENDS is one series that you can we can watch on loop and never get bored of. The cast stars Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. Earlier this year, the makers announced a reunion episodes and since then the fans have been going gaga over it.
The cast of the show isn’t just tight with each other on-screen but off-screen. They have been good friends with each other ever since the sitcom started.
A while ago, Lisa Kudrow who plays the role of Phoebe Buffay on FRIENDS revealed that she wanted to quit the show after season 3 but it was Matt LeBlanc who plays the character of Joey Tribbiani on the show convinced her to stay back.
Friends casting agents knew Lisa from before because of her another NBC show called ‘Mad About You’ and they knew she would be the perfect person to play the role of Phoebe on FRIENDS. So, the producers needed a way to explain the reason behind taking the same character in both the shows and hence came up with the idea of Phoebe having a snippy sister named Ursula.
Both her characters’ ingenuity helped Lisa to be in both shows and yet not creating any confusion for her fans. In a very smart move, Kudrow’s real sister Helena was used as a stunt double for Ursula’s character. Apparently, Kudrow wasn’t a fan of shooting scenes with her ‘sister’.
By the third season, Lisa was a little exhausted of playing the double role of the shows and being funny all the time and told Mirror, “I had played dumb girls, sure, but it wasn’t really me. I feel like sh*t; I tricked them. At the audition, I was the only one who could cope with the audition process and that’s how I got it, I think. So I had to work hard at being Phoebe, you know.”
The FRIENDS actress was contemplating leaving the show and it was none other than Matt LeBlanc who convinced her to stay. Lisa recalled, “I was struggling so much and LeBlanc was like, ‘What’s going on with you?’”
Lisa Kudrow further added, “And I said, ‘I can’t, I don’t think I have it, I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing’. And he went, ‘You’re her, relax, you got it. You’ve been doing this f*cking character for three years. You’re working too hard. That’s your problem. You don’t need to work this hard. Relax.’ And he was right.”
And we are glad LeBlanc said that without Lisa playing Phoebe show would have definitely been dull.
Isn’t that great? We can’t thank Matt LeBlanc enough for convincing Lisa Kudrow to stay and be a part of FRIENDS.
