Lisa Kudrow admits being true pals with her Friends co-stars was 'hard work'

Lisa Kudrow, who shot to fame playing the iconic Phoebe Buffay in Friends, has opened up about her off-screen relationship with her five famous co-stars

Lisa Kudrow has admitted it took some time before she was real-life pals with her Friends co-stars.

The 61-year-old actress shot fame as Phoebe Buffay in the iconic sitcom alongside Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry, which ran from 1994 to 2004.

Admitting the "six-way relationship" between the co-stars "took some work", Lisa revealed the actors "worked hard at being friends". However, she also explained the co-stars became genuine pals away from the camera, and would try to "really talk things through" if there were any disagreements.

Appearing on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, she recalled: "If someone said something or did something, it didn't get too big because it was: 'Can I talk to you?'" However, Lisa admitted it was "usually not her" who would open up the conversations, because she "never knew that was allowed". She explained "I had to learn to be like: 'Can I talk to you about something?' "

Friends initially ran over the course of 10 seasons, but now streams on Netflix and is considered to be a billion-dollar franchise thanks to endless reruns and merchandise lines.

No Good Deed star, Lisa, recently noted that the interaction between the six main characters is the reason that fans around the globe are "still attached" to the show all these years later, and that the sitcom has all the other magical ingredients that make the sitcom such a smash hit.

She told PageSix: "That’s why people get attached to them and then if it’s funny, there [are] good performances, good jokes, that’s a bonus and Friends had all that."

So many people have watched the entire series over and again, but Lisa was not one of them - until recently. Despite playing Phoebe for 10 years on the NBC comedy show, she avoided watching the series herself. However, this changed after Matthew Perry’s tragic passing last year.

Speaking on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, she revealed: "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.’ And then well, listen. 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. So I have started watching Friends. Not started, like, from Season 1 you know, but there are marathons on. And I have spent time since he died, all day long, watching the show."

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