CAROLINE BULLOCK: Lisa Kudrow has resorted to the most humiliating new low. After everything with Matthew Perry, how COULD she?
The world may be on the brink of World War III, but we can still count on disaffected celebrities to remind us of life's real struggles.
Yes, get those tissues ready.
Because it seems actress Lisa Kudrow, despite a career more than three decades long - and an estimated $130 million fortune - believes that hers is the greatest sob story ever (or is it never) told.
Now on the promo trail for the third and final season of the HBO satirical comedy The Comeback, Kudrow's stream of tone-deaf self-pity seemingly knows no end. Hawking the show in which she plays a B-list actress trying to revive her career, 62-year-old Kudrow is letting the world know just how overlooked and underrated she has been.
Even the mega stardom - and accompanying $1 million per episode paycheck - on Kudrow's 90s hit series Friends came with a little-known downside: Her co-stars received more attention than Kudrow did.
'Nobody cared about me,' she whined in an interview with The Independent on Saturday. 'There were certain parts of [my talent agency] that just referred to me as "the sixth Friend."'
Not so fast, countered Comeback co-creator Michael Patrick King in the same interview, understandably surprised at the apparent diss. Wasn't Kudrow the first Friends' cast-member to win an Emmy? (She was awarded outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series in 1998.)
'Yeah,' Kudrow laments, before continuing to complain. 'But there was no vision for me, and no expectations about the kind of career I could have. There was just, like, "boy is she lucky she got on that show."'
Actress Lisa Kudrow , despite a career more than three decades long—and an estimated $130 million fortune—believes that hers is greatest sob story ever (or is it never) told
Wasn't Kudrow the first Friends cast-member to win an Emmy (in 1998), asked Comeback co-creator Michael Patrick King (left) in a recent interview
I agree - as would anyone with an eye on the bigger picture. Or any sized picture, for that matter.
To review: Kudrow was a struggling nobody with little more than an LA improv comedy troupe on her resume before Central Perk came calling with near-instant superstardom.
More than 30 years on, she and her former Friend's co-stars still haul in more than $20 million annually from the show's residuals.
Interestingly, Kudrow's main beef seems to be that those co-stars were bagging bigger film roles than she was at the height of their Friends popularity. (Jennifer Aniston had hits like Picture Perfect in 1997, while Courtney Cox bagged the Scream franchise.)
But poor old Lisa still managed to do pretty well for herself, with success in the 1997 cult comedy Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion and a co-staring turn with Robert De Niro in the 1999 crime comedy Analyze This.
But these wins are losses in Kudrow's retelling. 'That's when the agents and businesspeople started circling wanting to put me in romantic comedies and things,' she told The Independent.
The problem? Not the films or directors - but Kudrow herself, who explained that rom-coms weren't the right path for her because she didn't feel 'adorable' enough.
It's a sly dig at the cutesy, girl-next door appeal that helped launch Aniston to mega-fame. But Kudrow can't have it all ways.
On the one hand she bemoans the apparent lack of bigger, mainstream film opportunities. With the other she swats them away when they come calling - no doubt believing chick flicks to be beneath her.
Kudrow's recent press blitz reeks of pleased-with-herself pretension. She has taken great pains to stress that Phoebe Buffay, her character in Friends, was 'very, very far' from her own personality. In other words, her acting chops really are pretty stellar.
Ok, Kudrow was intrinsic to the ensemble's chemistry - but let's get real. Dialing up the ditz on autopilot for a decade and belting out yet another rendition of Smelly Cat couldn't have been the greatest stretch.
In truth, Kudrow's narrative as an outsider struggling for validation feels even more misplaced when you consider the varying fortunes of her former Friends co-stars.
Aside from Jennifer Aniston's A-list ubiquity, we've got Matthew Perry dead and gone after decades of drug struggles and man-mountain Matt Le Blanc eating is own body weight in Krispy Kremes. Then there's David Schwimmer inability to shake off Ross Geller's nebbishy vibes and a barely working Courtney Cox with a face full of filler.
Kudrow's recent press blitz reeks of pleased-with-herself pretension. She has taken great pains to stress that Phoebe Buffay, her character in Friends, was 'very, very far' from her own personality. In other words, her acting chops really are pretty stellar.
In truth, Kudrow's narrative as an outsider struggling for validation feels even more misplaced when you consider the varying fortunes of her former Friends co-stars.
Kudrow - without being classic leading lady material - has sustained a 32-year career and, now in her sixties, can boast primetime exposure and creative control.
She's also the only Friends alum still married to her original spouse with an apparently well-adjusted kid, hardly a minor accomplishment in Tinseltown.
Too bad that like so many actresses of a certain vintage, Kudrow has restored to churning out the tedious trope of victimhood to pimp her privileged second act.
Spare me the tragic undertones Lisa - it's all falling as flat as Phoebe's singing voice. Just enjoy your comeback.
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