Lisa Kudrow admits she used to get 'really angry' at Friends audience during live filming

Lisa Kudrow has revealed that she would sometimes become 'irritated' with the studio audience while filming Friends for a very good reason.

Filming a show with a studio audience can be a great way to more organically introduce laughter into a show.

Whether it's a talk show, or panel show, it adds a more real touch than using a canned laugh track.

But when you're filming a sitcom a studio audience can come with its own set of challenges, as Friends star Lisa Kudrow revealed.

The actor told how she would sometimes get frustrated with the audience as it would make it more difficult for the cast shooting the show.

Acting on stage for a live audience and for a camera are two very different styles of acting.

Stage acting has to be bigger so the people in the seats can tell what you're doing, whereas for a camera it's more nuanced as it can pick up every bit of your face.

Kudrow highlighted the challenges performing for both created, and one thing in particular.

The cast of Friends. (Reisig & Taylor/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

She told the Conan Needs a Friend podcast: “Because they were laughing for too long. It wasn’t that funny. That’s why.

“It wasn’t an honest response and it irritated me. Now you’re just ruining the timing of the rest of the show. There are other lines. Sometimes I would just look out if they’d been laughing too long, and go, ‘Come on’. Really angry.”

Explaining why it was difficult to film with an audience, she said: “A TV show is not for the studio audience."

She explained: “It is made for the TV viewers at home. That’s who we are in service to. If it was a stage play, yeah laugh as long as you want. I’ll figure out things to keep my character busy waiting to continue with it. That’s fine.

Lisa Kudrow in costume as Phoebe. (Reisig & Taylor/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

"It’s being filmed and now I’m just standing there … you do like nod, ‘Yeah, I said that.’ It’s terrible. They instructed our audience not to do anything like that, I think.”

Filming would also last for as much as six to eight hours for a half-hour episode.

This meant that as takes and retakes were done, audiences would get tired of jokes which writers would misinterpret as the writing being weak.

This prompted rewrites, and yet more takes.

Kudrow said: “But it worked the first time!

“All I knew is you’re going to take the laugh track from the first take and move it to whatever take this is."

She added: "I am okay if they aren’t laughing as hard. We can keep going.”

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