Lisa Kudrow reveals why she was ‘irritated’ by the ‘Friends’ studio audience

Kudrow, who played Phoebe on ‘Friends’ said the studio audience laughter often disrupted filming.

Lisa Kudrow recently discussed her irritation with the studio audience while filming the iconic sitcom Friends. 

On the "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend" podcast, Kudrow, who portrayed Phoebe Buffay, admitted she was often frustrated by the audience's prolonged laughter. “It wasn’t that funny. That’s why,” Kudrow stated. 

She explained that excessive laughter disrupted the timing of subsequent lines. “There are other lines. Sometimes I would just look out if they’d been laughing too long, and go, ‘Come on’. Really angry,” she added.

Kudrow, 60, emphasised that her focus was on the viewers at home rather than the studio audience. “A TV show is not for the studio audience, it is made for the TV viewers at home. 

That’s who we are in service to,” she noted. She elaborated that if the show were a stage play, extended laughter would be manageable, but the filming process made it challenging. Kudrow also revealed that the filming of each episode took six to eight hours, with numerous takes sometimes leading to diminished audience reactions.

Despite this, Kudrow recognised the value of initial audience laughter. “All I knew is you’re going to take the laugh track from the first take and move it to whatever take this is,” she said. This sentiment was echoed by her co-star Jennifer Aniston, who noted in Variety's "Actors on Actors" series that Kudrow wasn’t fond of the audience’s laughter, adding, “Lisa Kudrow, by the way, hated when the audience laughed.”

Friends is currently available for streaming on Max.