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Producer · Actor · Writer

1963-07-30 · Los Angeles, California, USA · Female

65 series in the catalog

Lisa Valerie Kudrow ( KOO-droh; born July 30, 1963) is an American actress and writer. She is best known for her roles as Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends (1994–2004) and Valerie Cherish in the HBO mockumentary series The Comeback (2005–2026). Her accolades include two Actor Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.

In late 1980s, Kudrow began her career in improv comedy and performed with The Groundlings in Los Angeles. Her early television credits include portraying Ursula Buffay in the NBC sitcom Mad About You, a role she later reprised on Friends after it was written in her character Phoebe's storyline. After Friends, Kudrow's television career progressed with roles in the comedy series The Comeback, Web Therapy (2011–2015), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2016–2019), Feel Good (2020–2021), Space Force (2020–2022), HouseBroken (2021–2023), Time Bandits (2024), and No Good Deed (2024). She also produced the reality program Who Do You Think You Are? (2010–2022) and the game show 25 Words or Less (2018–present).

In film, Kudrow earned praise for her performances in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), The Opposite of Sex (1998), and Kabluey (2007). She has also appeared in several success comedies, including Analyze This (1999), P.S. I Love You (2009), Easy A (2010), Neighbors (2014), The Boss Baby (2017), and Booksmart (2019).

Early life

Lisa Valerie Kudrow was born in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles on July 30, 1963, the daughter of Nedra, a travel agent, and Lee Kudrow, a doctor who specialized in treating headaches. She has an older sister, Helene, and two older brothers, David and Derrick. She was raised in a middle-class Jewish family and had a bat mitzvah. Some of her ancestors came from Ilya (present-day Belarus). Almost all Jews in Ilya were murdered during the Holocaust, including Kudrow's paternal great-grandmother. Her paternal grandmother left Belarus for Brooklyn, where her father grew up.

Kudrow attended Portola Middle School in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles. She graduated from Taft High School in the Woodland Hills neighborhood, which was attended at the same time by rapper Ice Cube and actress Robin Wright. She received her Bachelor of Arts in biology from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, intending to become an expert on headaches like her father. While breaking into acting, she worked for her father for eight years and earned a research credit on his study on the comparative likelihood of left-handed individuals developing cluster headaches.

Career

1989–1994: Early career

At the urging of comedian Jon Lovitz, who was a childhood friend of her brother, Kudrow began her comedic career as a member of The Groundlings, an improv and sketch comedy school in Los Angeles. She has credited Cynthia Szigeti, her improv teacher at The Groundlings, for changing her perspective on acting, calling her "the best thing that happened, on so many levels". Briefly, Kudrow joined with Conan O'Brien and director Tim Hillman in the short-lived improv troupe Unexpected Company. She was also the only regular female member of the Transformers Comedy Troupe. She played a role in an episode of the NBC sitcom Cheers. She tried out for Saturday Night Live in 1990, but Julia Sweeney was chosen instead. She had a recurring role as Kathy Fleisher in three episodes of season one of the Bob Newhart sitcom Bob (CBS, 1992–1993), a role she played after taking part in the series finale of Newhart's previous series Newhart. Prior to Friends, she appeared in at least two network-produced pilots: NBC's Just Temporary (also known as Temporarily Yours) in 1989, playing Nicole; and CBS' Close Encounters (also known as Matchmaker) in 1990, playing a Valley girl.

Kudrow was cast as Roz Doyle in Frasier, but the role was re-cast with Peri Gilpin during the taping of the pilot episode. In 2000, Kudrow explained that when rehearsals started, "I knew it wasn't working. I could feel it all slipping away, and I was panicking, which only made things worse." Her first recurring television role was Ursula Buffay, the eccentric waitress on the NBC sitcom Mad About You.

1994–2004: Friends and worldwide recognition

Kudrow, the oldest actor of the main cast, reprised the character of Ursula on the NBC sitcom Friends, in which she co-starred as massage therapist Phoebe Buffay, Ursula's twin sister. Praised for her performance, Kudrow was the first Friends cast member to win an Emmy Award with her 1998 honor as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her starring role as Phoebe on Friends (NBC, 1994–2004). Kudrow received critical acclaim for playing Phoebe. According to the Guinness Book of World Records (2005), Kudrow and co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox became the highest paid TV actresses of all time, earning $1 million per episode for the ninth and tenth seasons of Friends. Phoebe has since been named one of the greatest television characters of all time. She played Phoebe until the show ended in 2004. The program was a massive hit and Kudrow, along with her co-stars, gained worldwide recognition. Her character, Phoebe, was especially popular. Entertainment Weekly voted Phoebe on Friends as Kudrow's best performance.

During her tenure on Friends, Kudrow appeared in several comedy films such as Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Hanging Up, Marci X, Dr. Dolittle 2, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That, and dramatic films, such as Wonderland and The Opposite of Sex. She also guest-starred on numerous television series during Friends, including The Simpsons, Hope and Gloria and King of the Hill, and hosted Saturday Night Live.

2004–present: Later career

Following Friends, Kudrow starred as protagonist Valerie Cherish on the experimental three-season HBO series The Comeback (premiered June 5, 2005), about a has-been sitcom star trying for a comeback. She also served as co-creator, writer, and executive producer. Nine years after the original season, HBO revived the series in 2014 for an abbreviated second season. Kudrow received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on The Comeback. Her production company is 'Is or Isn't Entertainment'. Kudrow serves as the executive producer for the U.S. version of the British television series Who Do You Think You Are?, in which celebrities trace their family trees. The subjects of the first series included Kudrow herself, in which it was discovered her great-grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust.

Kudrow co-created an improvised comedy webseries, Web Therapy on Lstudio.com. The improv series, which launched online in 2008, has earned several Webby nominations and one Outstanding Comedic Performance Webby for Kudrow, who plays therapist Fiona Wallice. She offers her patients three-minute sessions over iChat. In July 2011, a reformatted, half-hour version of the show premiered on Showtime, before being cancelled in 2015 after four seasons. Kudrow has guest starred on multiple television series such as Cougar Town, BoJack Horseman, Angie Tribeca, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Scandal.

Kudrow has appeared in multiple comedic films such as Happy Endings, Hotel for Dogs, Easy A, Neighbors and its sequel Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Long Shot, and Booksmart. She also appeared in the romantic drama film P.S. I Love You and co-starred in the thriller film The Girl on the Train.

Along with Mary McCormack, Kudrow has been an executive producer of the syndicated game show 25 Words or Less since 2019; Kudrow herself sometimes plays as a celebrity guest on the show. Kudrow played Hypatia of Alexandria in a 2020 episode of The Good Place, and starred as Maggie Naird in the Netflix comedy series Space Force. She reunited with fellow Friends cast mates for the HBO Max unscripted television special Friends: The Reunion in May 2021.

Kudrow starred as Lydia in the Netflix comedy-drama No Good Deed in December 2024, earning positive…