Lisa Kudrow Was Fired from ‘Frasier’
Lisa Kudrow is obviously doing quite well right now, considering that she’s starring in the new Time Bandits show on Apple TV+ and presumably has a Scrooge McDuck-esque vault full of Friends royalty checks.
But there was a time when Kudrow was still a struggling young actor, and had to grapple with the pain of losing out on a role in one of the ‘90s most successful sitcoms that in no way involved singing about malodorous cats.
While guesting on the SmartLess podcast, Kudrow chatted about how she was hired, and promptly fired, from Frasier after being cast as Frasier’s sassy, relentlessly-shamed producer Roz Doyle. “It was devastating to get fired,” Kudrow revealed, recalling that she was told by director James Burrows “this isn’t working,” while performing the pilot’s run-through, and let go shortly afterwards.
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“I think they did make a casting mistake,” the Friends star reasoned, “because I went to the network with Peri Gilpin. Peri should have always been Roz.” Although she did admit that it was “devastating” for her at the time — possibly even more so than when David Duchovny lost out on the chance to play Uncles Joey or Jesse.
For fans of the show, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Gilpin as Roz. As Frasier executive producer Peter Casey once explained, after Kudrow and Gilpin auditioned for NBC, Kudrow was ultimately cast, not because she was right for the role as it was written, but because her line readings always got laughs. “Lisa didn’t exactly fit the mold of what we were looking for in terms of a strong-willed character, but she was really funny,” Casey stated. “Her quirkiness made lines that weren’t intended as jokes hilarious.”
Burrows has said in the past that what ultimately convinced him that Kudrow wasn’t right for the part was the climactic moment in the pilot when Roz convinces Frasier to be more tolerant of his father with a monologue about the death of Hollywood starlet Lupe Vélez.
“You had to do that speech with some toughness, and Lisa did it, but it was more ditzy,” Burrows told an interviewer from the Television Academy.
Because Kudrow was booted from Frasier, she was free to appear as Ursula the waitress/future identity thief porn star in Mad About You and, eventually, to star in Friends, which again required working with James Burrows. “I was the only cast member for Friends that had to audition for Jimmy Burrows,” Kudrow told the SmartLess hosts. “Because I had just gotten fired from Frasier.”
After her audition for Burrows, Kudrow was simply told “no notes” but understandably wasn’t sure if that meant that it was “hopeless” or “perfect.” Clearly it was the latter, because she got the job.
Who knows, maybe we’ll eventually get to see Kudrow’s take on Roz when the Frasier reboot inevitably runs out of ideas and introduces the concept of the multiverse, à la Marvel.
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