[from Ladies Home Journal, 2/00]

Lisa Kudrow talks about the virtues of virginity, the surprising ways motherhood has changed her, and why her hit series might end.

Lisa Kudrow is weeping. After a morning of being super-groomed by stylists, she is--or was--picture perfect. But her husband, French advertising executive Michel Stern, ruined all that with one sweet nothing. Stern, who dropped by the cover shoot to have lunch with his wife and their toddler, Julian, was obviously paying attention when Kudrow admired the delicate diamond drops the stylist had placed on her ears. Just as the flashes started popping, Stern whispered to his wife, "You can take those home weeth you, my b ay-bee. I bought zem for you." With a wave, he disappeared, the tears flowed, and the mascara-wielding makeup artist rushed in for damage control.

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but Kudrow is officially Friends's best Friend. Her seamless portrayal of space cadet Phoebe has won the thirty-six-year-old actress an Emmy (she's the only member of the cast who has one), earned her millions ($125,000 per episode), and offered her a crack at feature films. This month, Kudrow hits the big time, co-starring with Meg Ryan and Diane Keaton as the flightiest of three sisters who deal with their father's alcoholism in the comedy-drama Hanging Up.

Kudrow may have the dumb-blonde role down cold, but the biggest surprise is the serious soul beneath the wacky persona. "She's smart-funny, not dumb-funny," says Meg Ryan. Director Diane Keaton was similarly disarmed by Kudrow's intelligence. "She's hilarious on Friends, but I didn't know she was mysterious or complicated," she explains. "She's sly, witty. She sucks you in without your even knowing."

There's a stillness to Lisa Kudrow even when she's in motion. Today, she is gliding over to our booth at Jerry's Famous Deli in West Hollywood. She has on a black T-shirt and brown linen pants. She is not wearing any jewelry or makeup, and her still-wet hair is slicked back into a ponytail. No one notices her. Everything about her seems tucked in.

As she orders scrambled egg whites with Parmesan cheese, she's friendly but reserved. Asked if she minds being perceived as the super-ditz she plays, Kudrow answers, "No. I had to let go of what people thought of me a long time ago. One day I'll do something different and they'll think I've changed," she says with a shrug. "But I won't have changed, they will have just gotten a different picture of me."

Kudrow got these conservative ideas not from her mother, a travel agent, and her father, a renowned migraine specialist, but from watching old movies like Life with Father and Cheaper by the Dozen. "There was always a virtuous girl, and guys want virtue, so she was going to hit it big and get the best guy," she explains. "Unfortunately I was behaving like that, but in the eighties."

What really turned her on was schoolwork. In high school, everyone thought my friends and I were a little freaky because we would study together on a Saturday night," she says. Early on she decided to follow in her father's footsteps and become a doctor. "I thought all of the truths of the world were in medicine," she says.

Kudrow searched for those truths at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she majored in biology and, finally, minored in boys, relinquishing her virginity at age twenty. "I had a boyfriend for a year and a half and it just seemed appropriate," she says simply.

After graduation, she was planning on doing medical research at Oxford University, but when she returned to California, the acting bug infected her inner scientist. "It's something in the air [here] I think," she says. "I thought I could probably [perform], and it would be fun." Her brother's friend, actor Jon Lovitz, encouraged her to try out for the improv comedy troupe The Groundlings, in Los Angeles. Her parents' reaction? "Overjoyed," she says. "They've always wanted to see me lighten up a little."

Kudrow immediately signed up for acting classes. Watching her fellow actors do their exercises almost made her quit. "Everyone looked ludicrous except this one guy," she explains. "He was totally committed, but he didn't look fake. So I became friends with that guy, and it was Conan O'Brien. He saved me in a way." O'Brien was just as impressed with Kudrow. "She created this biology teacher character who would make long speeches that were jammed with all this amazing information from her premed classes," remembers the late-night talk-show host. "She has the best timing of any comedic actor I know. It's the way she says things."

Kudrow relied on O'Brien's friendship through the ups and downs of her fledgling career. "Knowing that he thought I was funny always made me feel better," says Kudrow, who also dated O'Brien for a short time. Kudrow was always there to pump O'Brien's ego in return. "I didn't want to replace David Letterman; I was really scared," he says. "Lisa was the one who forced me to go audition. She said, 'You have to do this.' "

Eventually the actress got her first breaks: a role in the play The Ladies' Room (which later became the movie Romy and Michele's High School Reunion), a guest spot on Cheers, the role of Roz on the pilot for Frasier. "I thought, I'm never going to have to worry again! This show will be on for at least five years," says Kudrow.

Unfortunately, she didn't click with her character during rehearsals, and Kudrow was canned. "I had to work really hard at combating those feelings of Wow, I'm not meant to be successful," she remembers. Her money was running out when her agent called with a walk-on part on Mad About You. "He said, 'Maybe you shouldn't do it, it's just two lines, and they need you there in forty minutes,' " remembers Kudrow, who raced to the set and managed to twist those two lines into one big laugh. Consequently, she was offered a six-episode role as the wacko waitress, Ursula. "I started crying because I didn't have to look for a day job anymore," she says.

That led to more TV pilots, including Friends in 1994. How long will the number-one sitcom go on? "If we were all happy doing it and the writing was good forever [we'd continue]. But that's not realistic," she says. "We don't want it to be bad and then get frustrated. We'll have to wait and see."

By then the actress will likely have her pick of roles for the big screen. Han ging Up, Kudrow's biggest break yet, gave her the chance to work with two of her idols. "I was laughing all day, every day," says Kudrow of the shoot. During their downtime on the set, Kudrow and Ryan, who shared a trailer, passed the time contacting the spirit world on a Ouija board and talking about their kids. "I know why everybody loves Meg Ryan," says Kudrow. "There is light coming out of her. You feel good when you are around her. The first thing out of her mouth is, 'Tell me a story about you,' always." The admiration was mutual. "It was a blessing that we got to play sisters," says Ryan. "Lisa feels she's on such a big adventure and she's actively grateful about her opportunities and for her son and her husband. It's really nice to be around her."

Kudrow's gratitude about her husband might stem from the fact that she almost didn't get the guy. She first met Stern twelve years ago when he picked up her roommate for a blind date. "He was so gorgeous, sexy, sophisticated; everything checked off on that ridiculous resume list in my head. So I thought, Great, he's perfect and now they are going out," she recalls. Six years later, Kudrow saw him again at a picnic. "I was like, 'We should play [tennis] some time. I'll give you my number,' " she says. "He didn't call for a week."

Once he did, they started spending all of their time together, although Kudrow kept an independent attitude. "I didn't need him, and thank God, because that's why our relationship blossomed," she explains. She kept her cool even when they got into a big fight and Stern told her he wanted to end it. "I said, 'If that's not you feel, I can't change your mind. But I'm not sure why we shouldn't be together anymore.' I was just honest. I didn't play any games," she explains. "He was afraid of commitment, and at that moment he decided to change. It was monumental." Two years later, they were married outdoors in Malibu.

Starting a family, however, had its complications. Kudrow was reluctant for the writers to script a pregnant character. "God forbid anything goes wrong with me, I would have to still play that out," she explains. So the producers waited until Kudrow was five months along and transformed Phoebe into a surrogate mother to triplets--a twist that garnered Kudrow the Emmy.

Luckily, Kudrow's own pregnancy was uneventful. But being the only parent on the set does make her feel separate from the other cast members. "Part of your brain is somewhere else all the time," she says.

When Kudrow is not worrying about her son's needs, she's feeling guilty about dealing with her own. "Whether mothers work or stay at home, they don't want acknowledge the part of themselves that needs time alone. It feels like you are shutting your child out and being a bad mother," she explains. "Good mothers are the ones who have let go of that." Despite its conflicts, those closest to Kudrow say motherhood has improved her. "Now that she has a child, she's a little bit lighter," says Friends co-star Courteney Cox Arquette. "She doesn't sweat the small stuff as much."

And when she does, it's Friends to the rescue. "The guys [David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc] know how to get her because she's extremely ticklish," says Cox Arquette. "All three guys tickle her and tears stream down her face. She laughs like a child; it's really adorable.


by Melina Gerosa Bellows