Beloved ’90s comedy “Friends” may have been one big lovefest on screen — but behind the scenes, it was a toxic stew of verbal abuse and sexual harassment.
At least, this is according to one of the stars of the blockbuster ensemble sitcom, which ran on NBC from 1994 to 2004.
‘We know that back in the room the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies.’
Gag orders
Apparently, the same writers who came up with now-iconic lines like, “We were on a break” and “How you doin’?” had brutally high standards for how their work was performed — and weren’t afraid to say so in profanity-laden tirades.
“Don’t forget we were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers’ lines or it didn’t get the perfect response, they could be like, ‘Can’t the b***h f**king read? She’s not even trying. She f**ked up my line,'” actress Lisa Kudrow told the Times.
Kudrow also claimed that the male writers openly leered over her comely co-stars.
Central perks
“We know that back in the room the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies about Jennifer [Aniston] and Courteney [Cox]. It was intense,” she stated.
Kudrow added that the dozen or so writers making up the staff were “mostly men.”
“Oh, it could be brutal, but these guys — and it was mostly men in there — were sitting up until 3 a.m. trying to write the show, so my attitude was, ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter.'”
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Don’t call it a ‘Comeback’
Kudrow made the comments while promoting the third season of her HBO series “The Comeback,” which depicts the humiliating misadventures of a washed-up sitcom actress trying to reignite her career.
Kudrow said that when it debuted in 2005, HBO worried that viewers would reject its unsparing depiction of its desperate protagonist — and the pathetic lengths to which she’d go for a shot at success.
“That was news to me, because I thought women could be just as ambitious as men. But a producer on another show said it’s like making jokes about disabled people. Obviously you don’t do it, and at that time, women were seen as victims.”
“The Comeback” was canceled after one season but returned for another in 2014.
MeToo soon?
The current season may surprise viewers with scenes mocking “gender-inclusive” language and a reference to making “illegal” jokes, but Kudrow explicitly denied that the show was hitting back at “woke” comedy or the MeToo movement.
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Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
“No, because the MeToo movement was great,” she said, although she did allow that “there came a point where you couldn’t joke about anything. It felt like comedy was dying.”
Kudrow may not always have enjoyed making “Friends,” but the massive residuals she earns would put a smile on anyone’s face.
The Times reported Kudrow and her castmates each still earn approximately $20 million per year.
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Actress, Align, Metoo movement, Television, Woke comedy, Sitcom, Friends, Entertainment
