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Actor Lisa Kudrow, 62, on the Best Part of Getting Older
The ‘Friends’ star says aging out of certain roles was a relief
Lisa Kudrow attends the Los Angeles premiere of HBO’s “The Comeback” on March 19, 2026, in Beverly Hills, California. Kudrow recently spoke to Lily Tomlin about what kept her going.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Key takeaways:
- Kudrow credits her longevity to liking herself without waiting for industry validation.
- She sees getting older as creative freedom rather than a limitation.
- Kudrow currently stars in the third and final season of The Comeback.
Friends star Lisa Kudrow, 62, has spent three decades in Hollywood refusing to let the industry ignore her. In a conversation with actor Lily Tomlin, 86, recently published in Interview magazine, she opens up about what kept her going.
Kudrow is closing out The Comeback, the HBO series she cocreated, cowrote and starred in across three seasons and lasted more than 20 years. The third and final season, now streaming on HBO Max, finds her character, Valerie Cherish, starring in the first sitcom written entirely by artificial intelligence. Kudrow told Tomlin it’s a trilogy finished on her own terms.
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Adults 50-plus spend more than $10 billion annually on streaming and movies, according to an AARP Movies for Grownups survey released in January. The study underscores the market potential in telling stories by and about people 50 and up.
Lisa Kudrow is Valerie Cherish in the third season of “The Comeback.”
Courtesy Erin Simkin/HBO
Tomlin asked Kudrow what she learned at 30 that she wished she had known at 25. Kudrow’s answer: “Don’t confuse people liking your work with them liking you. And don’t wait to get permission to like yourself, because you’ll need that. You’re all you’ve got.”
Tomlin agreed: “We’re conditioned to think it’s arrogant if you like yourself, and it’s not. It’s a requirement.” Kudrow concurred.
“For stability,” she said.
Kudrow grew up in Tarzana, California, earned a degree in biology at Vassar College and was headed toward a career in science before she started doing improv at The Groundlings, a Los Angeles sketch comedy theater. She landed the role of Phoebe Buffay on Friends in 1994 and won a Primetime Emmy Award for it in 1998.
(From left) Lisa Kudrow and Chris Isaak in an episode of “Friends,” which ran until 2004.
Warner Brothers/Courtesy Everett Collection
After Friends ended in 2004, Kudrow and writer Michael Patrick King built The Comeback, a satire about a woman who refuses to accept that her moment has passed — because to Kudrow, “the funniest thing is someone who has no idea that they’re operating in an alternate reality,” she told Interview.
The show got low ratings and was canceled after its first season. But Kudrow didn’t flinch.
“When Michael called to tell me, I didn’t feel bad. It wasn’t my mistake,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in a March 2026 digital cover story. “I felt really great about what we had done and knew that we couldn’t have done better. Someone is making a mistake, and I knew it wasn’t ours. I just thought, Well, I’ll do other things, and maybe someday they’ll change their mind. Ten years later, they did.”
The Comeback returned in 2014 to critical acclaim.
On aging, Kudrow is equally direct. She arrived at The Hollywood Reporter interview at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge with sunglasses shielding inflamed eyes, which she later blamed on Botox. She told the magazine she got Botox for the first time at 60 and that this latest injection might be her last.
“I think it contributed to my eye irritation and this weird pattern on my forehead, so I’m probably done with it now anyway,” she said.
As for what getting older has meant for her career, she told THR: “I’m not a romantic-comedy actress. I’m not cute or sexy or the type of character where my only problem is I am too clumsy to have a boyfriend, you know what I mean? I couldn’t wait to just be older and age out of certain things. Isn’t that weird?”
She is not particularly sentimental about any of it. “I am scared of having to see myself looking like my grandmother one day, but I’m excited to play older roles,” she said.
(From left) Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino in 1997’s “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”
Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Kudrow is also starting something new.
According to Deadline, Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, 58, are set to reprise their roles as Romy and Michele this summer for a sequel to Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, the 1997 cult comedy. The original film, which follows two best friends, has become the kind of movie that people quote from memory and watch on loop. Fans will remember Kudrow’s character Michele famously claiming to have invented the Post-it note to impress the high school bullies.
Costar Alan Cumming confirmed the movie on The Jennifer Hudson Show.
Kudrow previewed the project last year with characteristic understatement. “There’s a script that’s really good,” she told Deadline in January 2025. “We’ll see.”
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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