Lisa Kudrow Details Why She Hated 'Friends' Audience Laughter So Much
She's doubling down.
Lisa Kudrow actually really did hate the studio audience laughter while filming Friends.
It was her costar and friend Jennifer Aniston who first revealed this tidbit about Kudrow a few weeks ago, and now the Romy and Michele's High School Reunion star is explaining why exactly it bothered her so much.
"'Cause they were laughing for too long. It wasn't that funny. That's why," Kudrow said on the Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend podcast.
"It wasn't an honest response, and it irritated me. Now you're just ruining the timing of the rest of the show. I mean, there are other lines. I mean, I didn't say it. Sometimes I would, just, look out if they'd be laughing too long, and sometimes I would just look out and go, 'Come on.'" She also shook her head and frowned, adding, "Really angry."
The actress went on to explain that she felt the laughter ruined the timing of the comedy.
"Because a TV show is not for the studio audience," she told O'Brien. "It's made for the TV viewers at home, so that's who we're in service to.
"If it were 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, but then it's being filmed and now I'm just sort of like standing there. And then you do, like, things that you hate, you know, just like nod, like, 'Ah, that's right, I said that!' It's terrible."
Even worse, Kudrow explained that the audience had in fact been told not to laugh for too long, but they ignored the request.
"I think they instructed our audience not to do anything like that," she said. "We did so many takes they did stop laughing, which then made the writers think, 'Well, then, it doesn't work.' It's like, 'No, it worked. It worked the first time.'"
In a conversation with Quinta Brunson for Variety's Actors on Actors series last month, Aniston revealed, "Lisa Kudrow hated, by the way, when the audience laughed." She added, "She'd be like, 'Uh, are you still... I'm not done! It's not that funny.'"
Kudrow then confirmed her pal's allegations speaking to Entertainment Tonight.
"It irritated me if they would laugh for too long," she said. "God bless 'em, they were so excited to be there that sometimes the laughter would just be longer than they would have laughed at anything else."
To be fair, who could blame these poor audience members? They were making television history, after all. But also, I totally get where Kudrow is coming from. Just one of those things!
