I consider myself just about the biggest Friends fan out there. I watched the series in real time growing up; bought all of the DVDs and pored over the commentaries; and — thanks to my Max subscription — that familiar laugh track and the dialogue I can recite from memory are often the last things I hear before I fall asleep.
Where I’ve fallen short, however, is keeping up with the Friends cast’s other movies and TV shows. Despite being years late to the party, I finally watched Lisa Kudrow in The Comeback, and now I’ll never be able to look at the actress the same way again.
The Comeback was canceled after one season on HBO in 2005, only to be revived by the cable network nine years later for Season 2. Lisa Kudrow executive produces and stars in the satirical look at the TV industry in this brilliant, meta and cringe-inducing mockumentary that has forever changed my perception of her. Let me explain why.
Even 20 years after Friends ended, it’s clear Lisa Kudrow will never shake the persona of Phoebe Buffay. However, that role was even fresher on people’s minds when The Comeback premiered on HBO on June 4, 2005 — just 13 months after “The Last One” aired on NBC. To jump into the role of Valerie Cherish, the seemingly desperate former sitcom star documenting her return to TV, so soon seems like such a ballsy move.
Many actors looking to move on from a big role will often take on something completely different so as not to pigeonhole themselves — just look at Jennifer Aniston doing movies like The Good Girl and Friends with Money. Lisa Kudrow went in the opposite direction and jumped right into playing a sitcom actress. Not only that, but one trying to reclaim the fame she’d found earlier in their career. How meta is that?
Of course Lisa Kudrow didn’t have to “reclaim” anything in 2005; however, it’s important to remember that she was 41 years old coming out of Friends, and likely not up for the same kinds of roles as 10 years earlier. Enter Valerie Cherish, who faces that exact situation on Room and Bored, the fictional sitcom that is the impetus for her comeback. After starring on a show called I’m It, Valerie’s new series feels like a downgrade, surrounding her with young singles (including actors played by Malin Akerman and Kellan Lutz), and relegating her to the role of the tracksuit-wearing Aunt Sassy.
Friends may be one of the best sitcoms of all time, but after watching The Comeback, I think Phoebe Buffay only scratched the surface of what Lisa Kudrow was capable of as an actress. Friends did allow her to tap into a different character when Ursula would appear, but in the HBO comedy Kudrow was, in effect, portraying at least four subtly-but-distinctively different characters — the perky version of Valerie she affected for the reality cameras, Room and Bored’s Aunt Sassy, Seeing Red’s Mallory Church (a fictionalized version of Valerie), and the real Valerie Cherish, when her guard was down and not playing to the cameras.
