Lisa Kudrow has revealed she was fired from Frasier after being cast as a main character.
The actor, who recently clarified a Friends revelation made by her former co-star Jennifer Aniston, is known by many as Phoebe Buffay – but her career almost went a very different sitcom route.
In 1993, one year before being cast in Friends, which Kudrow says she can’t watch due to being “mortified” by her performance, the actor won the role of Roz Doyle in Frasier, the Cheers spin-off focused on Kelsey Grammer’s character. In the show, Roz is the producer of Frasier’s radio show.
However, before filming the pilot episode, Kudrow was dropped from the role, telling the SmartLess podcast: “I didn’t film it. I got fired from Frasier.”
The actor, 61, described this as “devastating”, telling co-hosts Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett that director James Burrows told her during the episode’s run-through: “This isn’t working.”
Not willing to be let go that easily, Kudrow said: “I was trying to like [ask], ‘What can I do?’
But she said that “they did make a casting mistake because I went to the network with Peri Gilpin”, adding: “I think they were just correcting a mistake. Cause Peri should have always been Roz.”
Kudrow then scored the role of “Waitress” in Mad About You – an opportunity her agent did not want to accept, but that she said “not in a position to say no” to.
After impressing producers, she was asked back for five more episodes that led to her being cast in Friends. But, she was “the only cast member” who had to audition for Burrows as she “had just gotten fired from Frasier”.
She told the hosts: “When I had my audition, I did it… it was just this small room. He is sitting at a desk. I’m in a chair, and the audition was like a little monologue. And when I’m done, he just went, ‘No notes.’ And I thought, ‘Alright. I don’t know what that means. It’s hopeless.’”
Kudrow played Phoebe for 10 seasons, winning an Emmy for the role in 2008.
In 2021, Kudrow revealed she was the only main cast member to have never watched all of the series back.
Meanwhile, Gilpin played Roz in all 11 seasons of Frasier, and returned for a guest spot in last year’s reboot. She is set to play the character once again in the reboot’s second season, which is due to premiere in September.
