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Lisa Kudrow feels it’s smart
to play dumb
It
is getting harder and harder to find a really dum b
blonde these days. Take Lisa Kudrow, the ditzy massage
therapist Phoebe in Friends, who cannot hold a tune,
keep a parent or get a joke. It turns out Kudrow was
set for a career in brain chemistry before “getting
sidetracked” into acting about 10 years ago. “I
had a bachelor’s degree in Biology and I was planning
to get another degree and do research,” she explained
in a recent interview, “I was interested in different
theories of evolution, and more specifically brain chemistry
and how that could have evolved and the influences on
the environment.”
Switching careers turned out to be a smart move for
Kudrow, 37, who has notched up a slew of awards for
her performance in the American TV sitcom, and is the
only one of the six Friends to have carved out a decent
alternative career in movies.
Statuesque, poised and green-eyed, she is also the most
private of the group, and has little time for the schmoozing
of the Hollywood celebrity crowd. Despite growing recognition
of her talents as a comedy actress, she gives the impression
that she would be much happier discussing neurology,
than conducting a character analysis of Phoebe Buffay.
“This is a lot of analysis for a sitcom character,”
she said, gamely attempting to answer a detailed question
at a press junket about Phoebe Buffay’s psychological
motivation, “There is not much worth analysing
with an actress at a press conference. With a presidential
candidate, yes. But not with me.”
After deft comic performances in The Opposite Of Sex
in 1998, and Analyze This in 1999, Kudrow is now being
offered meatier roles. While she plays yet another dumb
blonde in her latest movie, the dark comedy Lucky Numbers,
the film has her taking centre-stage for the first time.
In fact, this time she is more flirty than flaky, and
plays a manipulative, small-town TV celebrity who stops
at nothing, including murder, to get what she wants.
Kudrow admits it was fun to play a foul-mouthed, thoroughly
nasty gold-digger in such contrast to the New Age nuttiness
of her Friends character. “I got carried away at
times and they had to take away a lot of the bad language
that I added. This character is so obviously awful.
She is way out of line all the time.”
The contrast was not something she deliberately sought,
but it did not take the brains of a rocket scientist
to say yes. “It’s not something I had to think
about very hard when Nora Ephron calls at home and says
I’m directing a movie, and John Travolta is the
star, and it’s a great script and there’s
a part for you. It’s not a lot of work to decide
to do it.”
The film has won mixed reviews, but Kudrow’s flair
for comic timing has been credited for turning an unpalatable
character into a funny one. Travolta, who reinvented
his own career when switching from smart guy to affable
fool, also paid tribute. “Lisa Kudrow and I are
probably most famous for playing dim-witted characters.
She’s a genius in comedy. You can see it on Friends
and in any one of the movies she has done,” Travolta
said.
Kudrow, daughter of one of America’s leading experts
on headaches, and sister of a neurologist, dabbled in
performing at high school, but put thoughts of acting
aside because “that’s not what an adult really
does with their life.” Returning to Los Angeles
to start her research career after graduating from college
in New York in 1985, she was inspired by an actor friend
to relive the days when she performed scenes from Fiddler
On The Roof to her school friends.
She swiftly won membership in prestigious improvisational
comedy theatre troupe The Groundlings, where her characters
included a geeky professor who delivered incomprehensible
medical lectures.
In real life, Kudrow is serene, grounded, the mother
of a two-year-old boy, and has been married (to an advertising
executive for the past five years). And she speaks fluent
French.
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