Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507250005
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HAL BOCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Series TV can consume the lives of those who labor on them. So how on earth does Kudrow manage two shows?
``It pretty much depends on `Friends,' because that's what I have a contract with,'' she explained. ``It's worked out pretty well. Whenever `Mad About You' needs me, they call up `Friends' and say, `Do you think it could happen?'
``If I'm not heavy in that week's show, I can do it. Because `Mad About You' is just a few lines for me. I can pretty much just show up on Friday night when they shoot their show. I've done that a couple of times, though it makes me feel nervous.
``The last time I did it, I showed up about 20 minutes before they started their shooting. I was a little confused, but it worked so well for the character.''
Kudrow, 32, has floppy bleach-blond hair and a casual manner befitting a Valley Girl. Except for her years as a biology major at Vassar College, Lisa Kudrow is a Californian, through and through. She grew up in the San Fernando Valley and returned to L.A. to find an occupation. She decided against medicine, which her father and brother pursued. Acting hadn't occurred to her.
``I had a pretty harsh opinion of actors,'' she confessed. ``Especially actresses. I'd see them on talk shows, and they were all so phony. They weren't real people, they seemed to make one bad life-decision after another, always getting divorced.
``When I graduated from college and came back here, two things happened: 1. Jon Lovitz, my brother's best friend, got on `Saturday Night Live'; 2. For the first time I realized this can actually happen, it's not just some pipe dream.
``More than anything else, I said, `You're only 21-22. This is the time to try something like this, so later on you don't regret that you never gave it a shot. You don't have kids, you're not married, you don't have house payments. Try it now and see what happens.''
She first tried to enroll at the training school of The Groundlings, the noted improvisational theater. Sorry, no experience. Junior high school plays didn't count. She was referred to a teacher, Cynthia Szigeti, who taught her the basics of improvisation, the style of theater in which actors invent scenes based on suggestions from the audience.
``The thing it teaches is to not take yourself so seriously,'' she explained. ``There are other people onstage with you, and they are sharing the responsibility of the scene.
``It was important for me because I was pretty harsh with myself: no room for failure, avoid bad things at all costs, that sort of thing. I wasn't very good at letting things happen and making mistakes.''
She became a Groundling and through that connection won a role in a local play. That led to a movie, ``Impulse'' (she was cut out), then roles on ``Cheers,'' ``Coach'' and Bob Newhart's show.
After a ``cold'' audition (no chance to study the script) for the waitress role on ``Mad About You,'' she was asked if she could return six or seven times during the season. Kudrow, who hadn't been working too much, allowed that she could.
When the next pilot season came along, she auditioned for several proposed shows, ``most of them bad.'' Then came ``Friends.'' She tried to avoid the role of Phoebe, which she considered too similar to Ursula. The producers insisted on Phoebe.
``Once the show got picked up, we found out we would be on at 8:30 Thursday night, right after `Mad About You,''' she said. ``NBC and the `Friends' producers thought `we should justify this somehow: seeing the same face and voice.' So Phoebe and Ursula became sisters.'' (This fall ``Mad About You'' moves to Sunday at 8.)
Kudrow was proud that Ursula made one appearance on ``Friends,'' via split screen with Phoebe. It recalled another show of the distant past in which the same actress played two cousins at once.
``I got to do the `Patty Duke' thing,'' she says.
In the Roanoke viewing area, ``Friends'' airs Thursday nights at 9:30 on WSLS-Channel 10.
by CNB