Lisa Kudrow is totally cool with a new cast taking over Friends, thanks
"I would love to see the now-version of that," Kudrow said—while also being very clear that she, herself, would not be in it
As TV’s endless obsession with rebooting its past has only picked up steam in recent years—sweeping up your Wills and Graces, your Murphys Brown, your Gossip Girls, and god knows who else in the process—one franchise has consistently defied efforts at a necromantic restoration: Friends. Sure, the show’s cast deigned to come back together for a reunion special last year on HBO Max, reminiscing about the good times. But they’ve also decidedly declined to dip back into the lives of Monica, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Rachel, and Ross in any kind of narrative sense.
And will probably continue to do so, per a recent interview Where Is The Buzz? conducted with series star Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow—who most recently co-starred on the second season of Netflix’s Space Force, and who has had one of the most creatively interesting post-Friends careers out of all her comrades—was pleasantly blunt about chances of a revival: “I don’t think there’s going to be a Friends reboot. I mean, not with any of us in it.”
But Kudrow is totally down for other people tackling this particular brief. “I would love to see the now-version of that,” she says, even as she is extraordinarily careful to reiterate, that she, Lisa Kudrow, would not want to be in it.
(And here’s where we note that Friends is one of those shows that probably couldn’t survive this particular reboot process; subtract the undeniable chemistry of the cast, and lingering affection for the characters, and you’re left with a sitcom formula that’s been thoroughly disseminated into the DNA of any number of subsequent TV comedies about people navigating their late 20s and early 30s.)
Kudrow noted—as she has before—that Marta Kauffman and David Crane, who created the show, are also unlikely to return for a reboot series, given that they did a pretty solid job of wrapping up these characters’ stories in the first place. (Give or take a Joey, of course.) Still, she sounds completely enthused at the idea of someone creating something new with the franchise, as long as, again, she and her castmates are “Not in it. Not in it!”