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Lisa Kudrow Looks Back on Being Fired from 'Frasier' Days Before Landing 'Friends' Role

Lisa Kudrow Looks Back on Being Fired from 'Frasier' Days Before Landing 'Friends' Role

Lisa Kudrow is reflecting on life before landing the role of Phoebe Buffay on Friends.

During an interview on The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday (June 23), the 57-year-old actress looked back on being fired from Frasier back in 1993.

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If you didn’t know, Lisa was cast Roz Doyle on Frasier, and three days into filming the pilot, she was fired, in part because of director James Burrow. The role ultimately went to Peri Gilpin.

“I wasn’t right for the part [or] for the chemistry of the group,” Lisa explained. “So that wasn’t working but I did think, ‘Oh, I am not this guy’s cup of tea.’”

Days later, she went on to audition for Phoebe on Friends, and had to audition again for James, who also directed several episodes of the show.

Lisa revealed that out of her Friends co-stars, she was “the only one of the six of us who had to go in and audition for Jimmy.”

“I had one extra audition just for James Burrows. I did it and he went, ‘No notes.’ I left going, ‘That either means she’s beyond help and helpless, just like I always knew,’ or ‘Yeah, it’s perfect. I have no notes,’” Lisa recalled thinking.

Once she started filming the Friends pilot, Lisa admits that she initially felt she didn’t mesh with the rest of her cast mates.

“Shooting the pilot that week I was like, ‘All right, here we go,’” she recalled. “And Phoebe was not the character that was part of this group really, that easily. There was a struggle.”

Luckily though, Lisa nailed her portrayal of Phoebe, and the rest is history!

Also during the Howard Stern interview, Jennifer Aniston talked about the one male guest star on Friends that acted as if he were “above” the show.

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Photos: Getty Images
Posted to: Lisa Kudrow