Friends wouldn’t have been the acclaimed sitcom it was without Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay – although, if the actor got her way, she would have played another main character instead.
Kudrow previously admitted that playing the eccentric role was “a lot of work” as she was so different from her, and she initially felt she could put in a better performance as Rachel.
According to the Emmy-winning actor, they were adamant she played Phoebe as they had struggled so much casting that particular role.
“Idiot that I am, I went, ‘Oh, but you know what? I gotta say, Rachel is Jewish, and boy, I love doing a Jewish American Princess – I think I could make that really funny,’” Kudrow recalled in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“I told my agents, ‘I can do Jewish American Princess and make that really funny.’ And so they said, ‘Uh-huh. All right. Well, we’ll tell them.’”
At the time, Kudrow didn’t “clock that” Rachel was supposed to be the romantic lead opposite David Schwimmer’s Ross.
“They went, ‘No, no. It’s so hard for them to find Phoebe. They’re not messing with that.’ So that was the sweet way of saying, ‘Yeah, you are not the romantic interest.’” The role eventually went to Jennifer Aniston.
Kudrow starred as Phoebe – known for her unpredictable behaviour and quirky musical performances – from 1994 to 2004.
Earlier this year, the actor told The Independent that “nobody cared” about her character.
She claimed that when Friends blew up after its second season, she didn’t see much of a change in her professional life.
“There was no vision for me, and no expectations about the kind of career I could have,” she commented. “There was just, like, ‘Boy is she lucky she got on that show.’”
It wasn’t until a few years later, when she made the Robert De Niro comedy Analyze This, about a mob boss in therapy, that “agents and business people started circling, wanting to put me in romantic comedies and things,” she said.
“I knew that wasn’t gonna work. I’m just not adorable!”
Kudrow has often spoken about her time on the show and how much Phoebe meant to her. In an interview promoting The Comeback in March 2026, she said: “At first, Phoebe was very, very far from me. It took a lot of work to justify the things she would say and do. Not in an irritating way — it was fun.
“Over the course of 10 years, a little bit of her came into me. I lightened up a little more and read some books on spirituality and things, just to try to understand her.”
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