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Lisa Kudrow And Courteney Cox Both Hid Pregnancies While Filming ‘Friends’: Here’s How They Did It

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:14 PST, Mar 16, 2016

Lisa Kudrow may be a great actress, but she still had to show Friends director James Burrows that she had what it takes to play the role of Phoebe Buffay, according to PopCrush. The 52-year-old actress shaded her Friends co-stars for being cast on the show so easily, while she had to fight for her role.

During NBC’s tribute to legendary TV director James Burrows last month, Lisa Kudrow revealed she had to fight for her Friends role of Phoebe Buffay, while her co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer only had to audition once.

The five former Friends co-stars recalled their first encounter with Burrows and how they got their roles. And while Aniston, Cox, LeBlanc, and Schwimmer were given their roles immediately, Burrows wanted Lisa Kudrow to do further auditions for her role of Phoebe.

Saying that she had to audition for Burrows, Lisa Kudrow turned to her former co-star Schwimmer (who played Dr. Ross Geller), asking, “did you?” And his response was that he remembers having a meeting with Burrows earlier.

Lisa Kudrow then interrupted him, insisting that it’s not auditioning. She then turned to her other co-stars and continued complaining that she had to audition for her role in Friends.

But as the conversation kept getting hot, and as Lisa Kudrow continued grilling her former co-stars about auditioning on Friends, she all of a sudden laughs it off (some would say in true Phoebe Buffay style), looks at Burrows sitting in the audience and thanks the 75-year-old legendary TV director.

When Lisa Kudrow calmed down, the Friends cast moved on to an on-screen chemistry question. According to LeBlanc (who portrayed Joey), Burrows forced the cast to get to know each other outside of the set to have a more “seamless” on-screen chemistry.

“He really encouraged each other to get along, and get to know one another, and be kind to one another.”

But the host of the tribute show, Andy Cohen, wanted to find out a more personal detail from the life of the Friends cast. So, the host asked if they had to sign contracts that they wouldn’t sleep with each other. Lisa Kudrow immediately responded that she wasn’t asked to sign “anything like that.”

Cox (who plays Monica Geller) then changed the subject, saying that the cast shared great chemistry and all of the actors got along in real life.

“The three girls, we had lunch together every day. We ate the same foods… ‘the Jennifer Salad.’ “

It was also revealed how Lisa Kudrow managed to hide her pregnancy while filming Friends, as reported by Health Aim.

After Lisa Kudrow announced to the show’s producers that she was pregnant in 1997, the Friends executive crew came up with the idea to make her character pregnant as well. The writers of Friends had to incorporate Phoebe’s pregnancy into the show without making the plot appear ludicrous.

So when Lisa Kudrow’s bump couldn’t be hidden any longer on screen, her character appeared in the show as the surrogate mother for her brother and his wife, who had been struggling to conceive a baby.

It’s also worth mentioning that Lisa Kudrow wasn’t the only actress on Friends carrying a child when filming the show. Her co-star, Courteney Cox, was also expecting her first baby during the filming of NBC’s show.

Lisa Kudrow and Cox’s examples once again prove that TV celebrities usually have no problems with hiding pregnancies during filming of their shows. The TV industry has used various ways to hide signs of pregnancy, including wearing baggy clothing, covering the bump with large bags, as well as other accessories to hide the belly. And, of course, camera angles do the trick quite well most of the times.

[Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images]

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jennifer aniston friends courteney cox David Schwimmer Lisa Kudrow Matt LeBlanc
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