Lisa Kudrow Reveals Why She was Fired from Frasier and How it Could've Cost Her Friends Role Too

Lisa Kudrow has revealed that she was pulled from the role of Roz Doyle on Frasier three days into filming the pilot. Appearing with former Friends costars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday, Lisa talked about her apparent discord with director James Burrows.

“I wasn’t right for the part [or] for the chemistry of the group. So that wasn’t working but I did think, ‘Oh, I am not this guy’s cup of tea,'” Lisa said of Burrows.

It could’ve cost Lisa the role of Phoebe on Friends, too. During the Howard Stern interview, she revealed that she was “the only one of the six of us who had to go in and audition for Jimmy,” who would be directing episodes of Friends, as well, reported People.

“I had one extra audition just for James Burrows. I did it and he went, ‘No notes.’ I left going, ‘That either means she’s beyond help and helpless, just like I always knew,’ or ‘Yeah, it’s perfect. I have no notes,'” she recalled thinking.

Once Lisa started filming Friends, initially she felt that she was cast in a role that didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the show’s core characters. “Shooting the pilot that week I was like, ‘All right, here we go’. And Phoebe was not the character that was part of this group really, that easily. There was a struggle,” she said.

Lisa said that Burrows “wasn’t wrong about Frasier” and that she “wasn’t right.” The role ultimately went to Peri Gilpin.

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