20 Questions: Lisa Kudrow

Graduating from Vassar College with a degree in biology, Lisa Kudrow intended to pursue a career in medical research and work with her father, a world-renowned headache specialist. But Kudrow's brother's good friend, actor and comedian Jon Lovitz, inspired her to audition for the Los Angeles improvisational group the Groundlings. She made the cut and, after appearing with the group for a few years, was offered guest roles on television's "Coach," "Cheers" and "Newhart." During the 1995 season, she was in two popular series, "Mad About You" and "Friends." Her "Friends" character, Phoebe, is a New Age ditz and arguably the funniest member of the cast. In support of the last point, she has garnered Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations as well as one for the American Comedy Awards.

Kudrow's career has recently expanded to the big screen, with co-starring roles in Albert Brooks' "Mother"; in "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion," in which she plays opposite Mira Sorvino; and in the independently produced "Clockwatchers," with Parker Posey. In addition, Kudrow finds time to perform with the Groundlings and a new group, the Transformers.

Robert Crane caught up with Kudrow in West Hollywood. He reports: "Lisa is prettier and taller in person than on television, and her hair should be as popular as Jennifer Aniston's."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Ditz has a proud history--Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe, among others. Is exceptional intelligence a gift or a burden?

[A] Kudrow: Mostly a burden. I never knew my IQ because my parents were liberal and refused to have me assessed. When I started playing stupid people, I allowed them to be in the rest of my life, too. So I'd go through life acting a little stupid or just not getting it. Life was so easy then. I did that up until Friends, when, for some reason, it bugged me. I wanted the rest of the cast to know that I wasn't really dumb. So I stopped and life got hard. We decide that someone is stupid when they're really nice and don't have that funny, sarcastic judgment that rips someone to shreds. If you don't have that quality, people assume you don't get it--that you're dumb. I had made a choice to be a nice person and not acknowledge the nasty stuff. But I had to stop if I wanted to be considered a person with a brain.

2.

[Q] Playboy: In playing a ditz, from whom do you take your inspiration?

[A] Kudrow: I'm not patterning myself after any actor who played a dumb person. I admire Judy Holliday, and Marilyn Monroe was very funny and played a really great dumb woman. I appreciate their work, but I don't have them in mind when I'm working. My dumb people aren't sexy dumb. Mine are regular dumb--and they're not even really dumb, I don't think. They are people who aren't focused on whatever it is the camera is focused on at the moment.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Who is the model for the bad folk songs your character sings on Friends--Leonard Cohen?

[A] Kudrow: It depends on what I've been listening to when we're taping the show. For one song it was Alanis Morissette--that inappropriate, out-of-no-where anger. Smelly Cat was kind of Chrissie Hynde. I write the melodies because I have to. I don't really play guitar. You can't show me a tune. I have to write it. I'm with BMI--I don't have my own publishing company yet. A collection of my songs would make a fun comedy album, but part of me would feel too bad for the real musicians and songwriters who are struggling to make a living at it. Then I show up.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Do people who have friends need to watch Friends?

[A] Kudrow: If anyone needs to watch any TV show, they're in trouble. I don't think normal people actually let Friends replace their social life. Like, "I don't need friends anymore because every Thursday night I've got six actors I've never met who pretend to be other people." But it was fun when I would watch the show with Courteney [Cox] at her house and she would have people over.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Do friends have to be kooky to be interesting?

[A] Kudrow: No. In fact, someone who is kooky is the most uninteresting person in the world, because kooky is not like a real anything. Anyone is interesting. The camera just happens to be turned on this group. You can do this with any group. As long as their hair and makeup are done well and they're well lit, you're going to go, "OK, I'm supposed to pay attention to them."

I like The Real World on MTV. I'd like to know if it's real or not, because I've been told that the cast kind of knows the camera is there so they purposely do stuff. I think the first season was real because I know someone who edited it and who was in on the creation of it. I love The Real World.

6.

[Q] Playboy: When you shoot Friends, is it cold in the studio? Courteney and Jennifer look chilly sometimes.

[A] Kudrow: Yep. Because of the lights and the cameras and stuff it's very cold in the studio. Thank God I wear a lot of vests and things.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Which companies have approached you for commercials? Martin or Gibson guitars, perhaps?

[A] Kudrow: No, God, they haven't. A company that makes macaroni and cheese approached me. It was like, "Wouldn't it be fun if you didn't get what was going on and then you get it because you're eating a big plate of starch?" I've turned down requests because, sometimes, there really isn't enough money in the world.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Jennifer Aniston has the haircut of the Nineties. What does it say about us as a people?

[A] Kudrow: That we're sheep. If something looks good, we want to try it. Heroin is really big now. How much more of a lemming can you be?

9.

[Q] Playboy: Of the things people say about Vassar girls, which are true?

[A] Kudrow: That they overdress. Everything was a (concluded on page 208)Lisa Kudrow(continued from page 141) cocktail dress at Vassar. It wasn't very collegiate, in a good way. I purposely chose a school that doesn't have sororities or fraternities.

10.

[Q] Playboy: If you were to bequeath an endowment to Vassar, say, the Kudrow Building or the Kudrow Professorship, to which department would you give it?

[A] Kudrow: I loved the biology department. I would help so they could do research without the pressure of securing grants from big corporations. All the research in that department was in obesity. If you were interested in anything else, you probably wouldn't get funding for it. The money was in obesity.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Your father is a well-known doctor who specializes in headaches. Did that disqualify you when you were single from using the phrase "I have a headache" to avoid further social obligations?

[A] Kudrow: I never used the headache line. I was always too honest--"I'm really not attracted to you; so I can't" or "I never had any intention of sleeping with you, so I won't." Much more forward.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Which television ads for pain relief were appealing to your family, and which ones did you make fun of?

[A] Kudrow: You mean were we like plumbers sitting around laughing at Drano commercials? We didn't do that. I asked one time, thinking I would get an in-the-know answer, "Is Excedrin really good? Which is the best aspirin?" The answer was, "It doesn't matter."

13.

[Q] Playboy: You and Conan O'Brien were an item--Vassar girl meets Harvard man. What went wrong?

[A] Kudrow: We became fast friends after an improvisation class we had together. We were the only two who connected. A girl said to me once, "Hey, you went to Vassar and he went to Harvard. So, did you guys know each other before?" And I'm supposed to be the one who's stupid. Yeah, see, there's a tunnel between all the Ivy League and sister schools. Actually, I don't know what went wrong. The question is funnier than the answer.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Describe your first date with Conan.

[A] Kudrow: There wasn't a date. It just happened. One night I told him I had a crush on him. I had been thinking about it for a while. He'd be perfect: We're best friends. He's smart. I respect him a lot and he's attractive. When it came time to tell him, I broke into a cold sweat and almost fainted.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Did you dump Conan when his ratings hit bottom?

[A] Kudrow: What happened was, he took off to do his show and there wasn't room for filling David Letterman's shoes and having a long-distance relationship. So that ended that. But within a month or two of breaking up, we met the people we're with now.

I've done his show three times. It's really fun. We talk all the time. My husband and I spent New Year's with Conan and his girlfriend. Conan is one of my husband's favorites. It's too good to be true.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Your husband is French. Who does the cooking?

[A] Kudrow: I do. He doesn't cook at all. He'll open a can of soup. He's a French boy who was taken care of his whole life. There was a lot of pressure at first. We'd have friends over from France and he'd want me to make something like pommes de terre dauphinoise. You know what that is? Potatoes au gratin. But they have to call it that. Then it has to be hard to make. They judged it. French people judge. Make no bones about it. They judge away.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Some people contend that the aggressor in an argument can't lose if he conducts it in French. Does your husband revert to French to win arguments?

[A] Kudrow: The argument would be over--but only because I wouldn't know what he was saying anymore. I could just leave the room, I guess. French expletives slip in. He says merde--piece of shit--a lot. Everything is du merde. Everything is "of shit." His parents were here and started laughing because everything he said was "of shit." They said they were "the father of shit, the mother of shit."

18.

[Q] Playboy: You're a serious tennis player. Did you letter at Vassar?

[A] Kudrow: I was on the varsity tennis team, but it wasn't that hard to accomplish. I played first doubles. A couple of times I got to play singles. In high school, I was on the varsity team. I was pretty serious for a little while--I had a personal coach and was thinking about playing in tournaments. Whatever my brother David was doing, I was interested in. I was pretty good, too.

19.

[Q] Playboy: What's the deal with tennis skirts and those frilly underpants?

[A] Kudrow: Skirts are so much cuter than shorts, and that A-line is flattering. The skirt is so short that you have to wear something. They make it frilly so you think it's not just underwear. It's really underwear.

20.

[Q] Playboy: If you had known Mira Sorvino in college, describe a road trip the two of you would have taken.

[A] Kudrow: To the Smithsonian, so Mira could explain some things to me.