Lisa Kudrow isn’t shy about how she feels about today’s sitcoms. In her own words, she doesn’t buy it. The Friends star, who made Phoebe Buffet legendary, says modern comedies don’t have the grit they used to.
With the rapid change in television, streaming, AI scripts, and strange new formats everywhere, Kudrow is standing firm. She wants to bring back the sassy jokes, the things that made people squirm and laugh at the same time.
Lisa Kudrow calls sitcoms ‘safe’: What did she say?
When Lisa Kudrow sat down for an interview to talk about the return of The Comeback, Kudrow got real about what’s missing from modern sitcoms. While chatting with Interview Magazine, she threw some “shade” at “safe” multi-camera shows, saying most are afraid to take risks.
For her, comedy should be about surprise. Those moments when you think: “Did they seriously say that?” But lately, according to her, the shows have avoided anything that might be embarrassing.Speaking to Interview magazine, Kudrow explained this. She misses the days when comedies were sharp and gritty. “30 Rock and Seinfeld and Friends were really funny and really well written,” she said. But when it comes to new shows, she said, “I’m not drawn to new sitcoms that are multi-cameraed in front of an audience because I don’t buy them.
I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve watched too many single-camera sitcoms that I think we need to get back to being able to tell jokes.
I feel like we were too afraid to make jokes that might make people uncomfortable. When asked her opinion, Kudrow explained, “Really good people, they’re not bad jokes.” She added: “It’s a joke like, ‘I can’t believe you just said that.'” Comedy is about surprise.
“You need things you didn’t see coming.”
About “Friends”
One can see where Kudrow is coming from, if they’ve watched Friends and still remember it. This show broke the mold of comedy shows on television. The film ran from 1994 to 2004, following six lovable and chaotic New Yorkers. With the show’s success, the cast (Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and Kudrow herself) became household names. “Friends” was about awkward humor and characters that weren’t afraid to be weird or flawed.
Timing was everything, and the live audience gave him an energy that you don’t really see anymore. The show troupe style still shapes sitcoms today.At the time, sitcoms thrived on chaos and characters that might surprise you. From Phoebe’s quirkiness to Chandler’s sarcasm, they made things unexpected. Now, shows are more streamlined, designed for live streaming, and designed to capture the attention of viewers around the world. This means faster plots, safer jokes, and less commentary from the live audience.Kudrow is not saying that everything new is bad. It’s just…different. And it feels like the comedy lost something raw and risky along the way.
Lisa Kudrow: life and career beyond “Friends”
As for Kudrow herself, her career took a pretty unconventional turn after Friends. Kudrow was born in Los Angeles, per People magazine, and studied biology before acting. Her breakout role was Phoebe Buffay, for which she won an Emmy Award. After Friends, she wasn’t content with chasing big parties. She created “The Comeback,” a satire about fame that is as strange as it is honest.
She created “Web Therapy”, an improvisation-intensive web series. She appeared in films such as “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” and “The Opposite of the Sexes.”As for “The Comeback,” in the third and final season of the series, Valerie, played by Kudrow, accepts the lead role in a new comedy series called “How Is This?”, which is secretly written by an artificial intelligence program. As reality show cameras follow her back in this final phase of her career, the actress and producer must navigate the many cultural mines of Hollywood in 2026.“The Comeback” premiered in 2005, and the satirical reality show returned for a long-awaited second season in 2014. The show’s third season premiered on HBO in March.
