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In the two decades since Friends <\/em>took its final bow<\/a>, Lisa Kudrow has more than proven her creative chops in an eclectic medley of projects \u2014 earning Emmy nods for shows such as Who Do You Think You Are?<\/em>, Web Therapy<\/em>, and The Comeback<\/em>, the cult-classic comedy<\/a> whose third (and final) season is airing now. But in the early days of playing Phoebe Buffay, Kudrow didn\u2019t think Hollywood had high hopes for her career.<\/p>\n In a new interview with The Independent<\/a>, Kudrow reflected on Friends <\/em>fame \u2014 noting that even as the show\u2019s exposure rose, she didn\u2019t feel received by the industry as a performer in her own right. \u201cNobody cared about me,\u201d she said in the interview, published on April 4. \u201cThere were certain parts of [my talent agency] that just referred to me as \u2018the sixth Friend.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In the same interview, Michael Patrick King \u2014 who co-created The Comeback <\/em>with Kudrow, who also stars \u2014 pointed out that she was actually the first of the Friends <\/em>bunch to win an Emmy.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Kudrow noted. \u201cBut there was no vision for me, and no expectations about the kind of career I could have. There was just, like, \u2018Boy is she lucky she got on that show.<\/em>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, if you\u2019re on a perpetual Friends <\/em>rewatch (personally, I clock in every day), you know that Kudrow was an essential piece of the show\u2019s uniquely feel-good spirit. Phoebe\u2019s unconventional upbringing and lack of long-running ties with the group might have made her the outsider, but her quirks brought hilarious charm \u2014 from comforting Rachel with the nickname \u201cPheebs\u201d (\u201cI thought that\u2019s just what we call each other\u201d) to bringing much-needed perspective to the group\u2019s on-and-off drama. See: telling Rachel, with some tough love, that her planning to skip Ross\u2019 wedding over their tricky history was \u201chigh-school crap<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Kudrow didn\u2019t feel love from the industry, she certainly found a family among her castmates. \u201cWe really did get along,\u201d Kudrow told Armchair Expert<\/a> <\/em>in 2024, explaining that she worked hard to prioritize respectful communication with her on-and-off-screen pals (Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and the late Matthew Perry).<\/p>\n And if you ever feel like getting emotional, watch the behind-the-scenes featurette<\/a> of the rest of the Friends <\/em>cast filming in London while Kudrow stayed at home because she was pregnant IRL. \u201cWe feel like we have a limb missing,\u201d Aniston says in the sweet throwback footage.<\/p>\n