Lisa Kudrow reveals Friends cast reunited once between finale and reunion show

Lisa Kudrow said her Friends castmates only met up once in the 17 years between the broadcast of the final episode and the reunion special.

The US actress shot to fame playing free-spirited Phoebe Buffay in the hit ’90s sitcom, opposite Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry.

Kudrow said the cast got together a decade after the series finale aired in 2004 and did not manage to reunite again as a six before Friends: The Reunion – which aired in 2021.

“We only had dinner, the six of us, once before, since the show had ended,” she told Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his podcast Dinner’s On Me.

Despite reuniting 10 years after the show ended, Kudrow said she felt the group “didn’t miss a beat”.

“It was so great that it was like ‘we should do this more’,” the 61-year-old said.

After years of speculation, the cast reunited for a one-off special in 2021 where they appeared as themselves and reflected on some of the show’s most beloved moments and famous sets.

“To have all of us together on the set, you never know when it will be impossible,” Kudrow said.

Her comment comes after the death of Perry, who starred as Chandler Bing in the sitcom.

He died on October 28 2023 at the age of 54 from the “acute effects of ketamine”, after falling back into addiction.

“It shook us up, I have to say,” Kudrow said on the podcast.

“He (Perry) said it won’t be a surprise, but it will be a shock, and that was exactly right. So smart, that is true – it wasn’t a surprise, but it was a shock.

“It was a big jolt.

“Personally, I think he died happy. I think in the days around his passing, I think he was happy and excited about what’s happening next.”

Kudrow said after Perry died, she began to rewatch old episodes of Friends to aid the grieving process.

“Schwimmer was hilarious, Matt LeBlanc was making me laugh out loud, Jennifer, come on, she’s so good, look what she just did,” she said.

“And Courteney, oh my God you’re hilarious, how did you never get nominated for an Emmy.

“And Matthew, of course, at the time he was blowing me away.”

Kudrow confirmed there are still “episodes I’ve never seen”.

“There’s a certain amount of anxiety around watching it,” she said.

“I’m afraid of what my takeaway is going to be.

“When Phoebe got married and she’s walking down the aisle and has this huge smile on her face, I teared up because she was so happy, she was so honestly happy.

“It was really touching to me, she deserves to be this happy.”

Friends focused on a group of six twenty-somethings living in New York and first aired on September 22 1994.

By the time it left screens a decade later, it was a pop culture phenomenon and remains one of the most popular shows on television.