"I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed."
Lisa Valerie Kudrow (born July 30, 1963 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress, writer, comedian and producer.
She gained worldwide recognition for her ten-season run as Phoebe Buffay in the sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades, including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Throughout her career she has received nine Emmy Award nominations, twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Selected filmography:
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Film roles
- Mother (1996) as Linda
- Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) as Michele
- The Opposite of Sex (1998) as Lucia DeLury
- Analyze This (1999) as Laura MacNamara Sobel
- Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) as Ava (voice)
- Marci X (2003) as Marci Feld
- Wonderland (2003) as Sharon Holmes
- P.S. I Love You (2007) as Denise
- Hotel for Dogs (2009) as Lois Scudder
- Paper Man (2009) as Claire Dunn
- Bandslam (2009) as Karen
- The Other Woman (2009) as Carolyn
- Easy A (2010) as Mrs. Griffith
- Neighbors (2014) as Dean Carol Gladstone
- The Girl on the Train (2016) as Martha
- Table 19 (2017) as Bina Kepp
- The Boss Baby (2017) as Janice Templeton (voice)
- The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021) as Janice Templeton (voice)
- Long Shot (2019) as Katherine
- Booksmart (2019) as Charmaine
Television roles
- Cheers (1 episode, 1989) as Emily
- Newhart (1 episode, 1990) as Sada
- Life Goes On (1 episode, 1990) as Stella
- Mad About You (23 episodes, 1992–99) as Karen/Ursula Buffay
- Bob (3 episodes, 1993) as Kathy Fleisher
- Coach (2 episodes, 1993–94) as Nurse Alice/Lauren
- Friends (234 episodes, 1994–2004) as Phoebe Buffay/Ursula Buffay
- Hope And Gloria'' (1 episode, 1996) as Phoebe Buffay
- Duckman (1 episode, 1996) as Female Beta Maxians (voice)
- Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (1 episode, 1997) as Lisa (voice)
- The Simpsons (1 episode, 1998) as Alex Whitney (voice)
- Hercules: The Animated Series (4 episodes, 1998–99) as Aphrodite (voice)
- King of the Hill (1 episode, 2001) as Amy Pittman (voice)
- Blue's Clues (1 episode, 2001) as the Baby Doctor (voice)
- Father of the Pride (2 episodes, 2004–05) as Foo-Lin (voice)
- The Comeback (21 episodes, 2005, 2014) as Valerie Cherish
- American Dad! (1 episode, 2006) as the Ghost of Christmas Past (voice)
- Cougar Town (1 episode, 2010) as Dr. Amy Evans
- Allen Gregory (1 episode, 2011) as Sheila (voice)
- Wendell & Vinnie (1 episode, 2013) as Natasha Kraf
- Scandal (4 episodes, 2013) as Congresswoman Josephine Marcus
- BoJack Horseman (7 episodes, 2015) as Wanda Pierce (voice)
- Angie Tribeca (1 episode, 2016) as Monica Vivarquor
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2016–19) as Fairy Godmother/Lori-Ann Schmidt
- Grace and Frankie (3 episodes, 2018) as Sheree
- The Good Place (1 episode, 2020) as Hypatia
- Feel Good (7 episodes, 2020–21) as Linda
- Space Force (8 episodes, 2020–22) as Maggie Naird
- HouseBroken (30 episodes, 2021–23) as Honey/Lady Capulet (voice)
- Rick and Morty (1 episode, 2022) as Tyrannosaurus Rex God (voice)
Tropes associated with her work include:
- Actor Allusion: When she guest stars on The Simpsons, she tells Lisa "you're such a Phoebe".
- Actor-Shared Background: She's a vegetarian like Phoebe.
- The Cast Showoff:
- Zig-zagged. She actually hates singing and only does it for comedy.
- She does however speak fluent French, which she demonstrates in Friends.
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- As Aphrodite in Hercules: The Animated Series.
- And as Mrs Templeton in The Boss Baby.
- And Honey in HouseBroken.
- Tyrannosaurus Rex God in Rick and Morty.
- The Danza: She plays Valerie Cherish on The Comeback. Valerie is her middle name.
- Dawson Casting:
- She was already in her thirties playing Phoebe in her twenties.
- Parodied in Bandslam where she has to pretend to be her son's older sister to impress a drummer. Her son says she's 23. The movie was filmed when she was 45.
- Dye Hard: She's naturally brunette but is best known as a blonde. She's gone brown for Wonderland and The Opposite of Sex.
- Dyeing for Your Art: She became a redhead for The Comeback.
- Playing Against Type:
- She plays a neurotic, repressed spinster in The Opposite of Sex.
- Wonderland is also probably the darkest film she has ever appeared in, though she only has a small role.
- Played the reserved and rather chilly intellectual mother of the protagonist on Feel Good.
- Playing Their Own Twin: As both Phoebe and Ursula Buffay on Friends.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Phoebe's triplets were written in to accommodate Lisa's real-life pregnancy.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: Teri Garr resembles her so much that she played her mother in both Friends and Kabluey.
- She Also Did: That's her in the Ice Cube video for "True to the Game".
- So My Kids Can Watch: Hotel for Dogs was because she wanted her son to be able to see some of her stuff. It was a similar reason for voicing Aphrodite in Hercules.
- Statuesque Stunner: At 5 feet 8 inches tall, she towers slightly over her Friends co-stars Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.
- Throw It In!:
- She was initially cast as Ursula on Mad About You. But when she got the role of Phoebe in Friends, the network wanted to 'explain' why Lisa was seen on two of their shows. So they made the characters twin sisters, and had a crossover episode.
- For the writing process of The Comeback, Lisa essentially improvised and what she said was transcribed and later filmed.
- Typecasting: Usually as a Genki Girl or some kind of ditz.
- What Could Have Been:
- She tried out for Saturday Night Live but Julia Sweeney got cast instead.
- She was initially cast as Roz in Frasier but got replaced with Peri Gilpin while rehearsing the pilot episode. This was apparently a mutual decision on both parties.
- Valerie Cherish was meant to have a sexless marriage in The Comeback. That was changed, because they felt that would make the character too tragic. It was decided to be better that the character "had love but was choosing to walk in front of a train instead."
