Lisa Kudrow Says She Was 'Preserving' Her Role on “Mad About You” in Case “Friends” Failed
Lisa Kudrow Says She Was 'Preserving' Her Role on “Mad About You” in Case “Friends” Failed
Tereza ShkurtajSat, March 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC
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Lisa Kudrow on 'Mad About You;' Lisa Kudrow on 'Friends.'Credit: Everett; Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty -
On March 25, 2026, Lisa Kudrow sat down with Vanity Fair to talk about Friends
During the interview, she discussed why she felt the need to preserve her role as Ursula Buffay in Mad About You
The 62-year-old also revealed how Ursula came to be Phoebe Buffay’s estranged sister in Friends
Before she became one of television’s most beloved eccentrics, Lisa Kudrow was already carving out a memorable niche on another hit sitcom.
Starting in 1992, Kudrow played scatterbrained waitress Ursula Buffay on Mad About You, years before audiences met the free-spirited Phoebe Buffay.
However, once Friends came around, she found herself torn between a role she already loved and a new opportunity that came with no guarantees of success. Looking back in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Kudrow shared just how uncertain she felt about risking one for the other.
“I was really proud to be able to have a role on Mad About You,” Kudrow, 62, told the outlet. “Honestly, when I shot the pilot of Friends, I thought, 'Yeah, I mean, this is a good show. But good shows don't get picked up all the time.' ”
Helen Hunt, Paul Reiser and Lisa Kudrow on 'Mad About You.'Credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
At the time, Mad About You — which also starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt, among others — was already an established NBC comedy.
"Thank God for Mad About You, which was my favorite show on TV. I mean, I thought that was such a great show. It was a quality multi-camera show," she said.
Kudrow’s Ursula was a sarcastic and often indifferent waitress who appeared as a recurring character, giving the actress a steady foothold in television. With that stability in mind, she approached Friends cautiously, unsure whether the new ensemble comedy would even survive beyond its pilot.
Reflecting on that uncertainty, she told Vanity Fair just how much she hoped to keep her original role in case Friends failed.
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“If there's any hope of me being able to stay on Mad About You, after the [Friends] pilot doesn't get picked up or they pick it up for, you know, 12 more episodes, and then that's it... like after this fails, because there's no telling what's gonna happen, something can be great, and still, it gets canceled, I'd still have Mad About You. I was preserving Mad About You for myself.”
Kudrow’s initial instinct was understandable given that television success is never guaranteed, and even promising pilots can disappear quickly.
But Friends, which debuted in 1994 alongside castmates Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry, quickly became a cultural phenomenon, eventually running for 10 seasons and turning its cast into global stars.
Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe; Lisa Kudrow as Ursula on 'Friends.'Credit: NBC
Right after Kudrow was cast in Friends, however, NBC faced an unusual dilemma: the then-31-year-old would now be appearing in two primetime shows as two different characters who looked exactly alike. As a result, rather than ignore the overlap, the network chose to lean into it.
“Friends found that they had to justify why this same face and voice is gonna be on at 8:00 p.m. on Mad About You once in a while, and then there she is at 8:30 p.m. on Friends,” she shared. “They had to cope with that. And incorporate Ursula into Friends.”
The solution became one of sitcom history’s most delightful crossovers. Ursula was written into Friends as Phoebe’s estranged twin, adding depth to Phoebe’s backstory while preserving Kudrow’s original role. For the actress, it was the best of both worlds.
“I was thrilled, you know, that I could still be Ursula,” she told Vanity Fair. In the end, Kudrow didn’t have to choose and she successfully transformed both Phoebe and Ursula into unforgettable characters — proving that sometimes uncertainty can lead to something even more iconic.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
