"There are other lines"— Lisa Kudrow reveals getting irritated at the Friends studio audience for laughing too much at jokes

Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay in 10 seasons of Friends, admitted feeling irritated when the live studio audience would laugh for too long during the recordings of the NBC sitcom.

The actress joined Conan O'Brien on the Sunday, July 21, episode of the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast and explained why she disliked the studio audience's laughter on the Friends set, saying:

"[I was irritated] because they were laughing for too long. It wasn't even that funny. That's why."

When probed about it, Kudrow further explained:

"It wasn't an honest response and it irritated me. Now you're just ruining the timing of the rest of the show. There are other lines."

Recalling instances when she would get annoyed with the live studio audience, Lisa Kudrow admitted:

"Sometimes I would just look out if they'd been laughing too long, and go, 'Come on!,' really angry."

The Friends star also noted that they would spend six to eight hours filming on set for just a half-hour episode of the sitcom, and because the production did "so many takes," the audience would eventually "stop laughing."

However, it was a two-edged sword, because with the audience not responding to their jokes, it would make the writers think that the material was no longer working. Kudrow said that it sometimes led to rewrites and even more takes.

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Lisa Kudrow admits she started watching Friends after Matthew Perry's death

While revisiting her time on the Friends set during the podcast, Lisa Kudrow also admitted to O'Brien that while she steered away from the NBC comedy show for years, her former costar, Matthew Perry's passing inspired her to revisit the show. She said:

"I used to not be able to watch it at all. I mean, I'd see it on and be mildly interested, and then I'd see me and say, 'That's enough of that. I can't bear it.'"

But things changed for her when Perry died in 2023, and rewatching Friends has given her a whole new meaning. She explained:

"After Matthew died, I could start watching the show again because it wasn't about me. It had to do with him, for some reason."

Lisa Kudrow admitted that she's now watching the sitcom and she's sometimes having a Friends marathon. At one point, she recalled spending all day watching the show since Perry's death.

O'Brien, a comedic icon himself, also recalled a time when Kudrow raved about Perry's sense of humor. He said that the actress had called him, "raving about Matthew" and saying that "he's so funny." The podcast host, who was good friends with Kudrow at the time, admitted that there was part of him that was jealous of the actress's admiration towards her costar.