Lisa Kudrow said in a recent interview that Jerry Seinfeld once took credit for the success of her hit 90s show, Friends.
The 59-year-old actress portrayed the eccentric yet lovable Central Perk musician Phoebe Buffay on the show from its pilot all the way until its series finale.
Speaking to The Daily Beast last week, she recalled a few words she'd exchanged with Seinfeld at a party in the 90s, which revealed he thought he had given Friends a hand amid its success.
When asked if she ever felt there was any competition between Friends and Seinfeld when the show originally aired, Kudrow said: "No. I did not at all. Not to take anything away from the writing on Friends, or the cast, or how good Friends really was, but the first season our ratings were just fine."
She continued: "We held onto enough of Mad About You and starting building, but it was in the summer when we were in reruns after Seinfeld, where Seinfeld was our lead-in, where we exploded."
The Girl on the Train actress went on to say: "I remember going to some party and Jerry Seinfeld was there, and I said, 'Hi,' and he said, 'You’re welcome.' I said, 'Why, thank you… what?' And he said, 'You’re on after us in the summer, and you’re welcome.' And I said, 'That’s exactly right. Thank you.'"
Elsewhere in the interview, Kudrow addressed an issue that fans of the show have increasingly been highlighting - the lack of diversity on the series, which is set in multicultural New York City.
According to her, the creators of Friends had "no business" writing the stories of people of color.
She said: "Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college. And for shows especially, when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven, you write what you know.
"They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color. I think at that time, the big problem that I was seeing was, 'Where’s the apprenticeship?'"
This comes after an interview Kudrow did with the The Sunday Times, in which she said that if the show were made today, it "would not be an all-white cast, for sure."
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