Friends star Jennifer Aniston jokes that costar Lisa Kudrow “hated” when the audience laughed while taping the show. First airing in 1994, the series created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane is now considered one of the best and most influential sitcoms of all time. In addition to Aniston and Kudrow, the Friends cast included David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, and the late Matthew Perry, with the series following their various exploits in New York City. Like many other shows of the era, the hit sitcom was filmed in front of a live studio audience.
During a recent interview with Quinta Brunson for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, Aniston reflects on filming in front of a live studio audience, which evidently came with some drawbacks.
Aniston, who played Rachel, jokes that Phoebe’s Kudrow would sometimes become frustrated with the audience’s constant laughing as she was trying to get her lines out. Check out Aniston’s comment below:
“Lisa Kudrow, by the way, hated when the audience laughed. She’d be like, ‘I’m not done! It’s not that funny!’”
Are Any Shows Still Filmed In Front Of A Live Studio Audience?
Back in the ’80s and ’90s (and back even further into the 1950s with I Love Lucy) it was far more popular for scripted shows to be filmed in front of a live studio audience. Friends was joined by the likes of All in the Family, Full House and Cheers, and many others, as a multi-cam sitcom filmed in front of real people. It was these real people, for the most part, providing the laughs heard on the show.
These days, however, it’s far more rare for shows to be filmed in front of real audiences. Game shows continue to keep the practice alive, but there has been a move away from live audiences for scripted programming. Saturday Night Live continues to be filmed in front of a studio audience, as it has been for nearly 50 years, but there has been a larger trend away from laugh tracks in comedies.
Some Friends episodes that took place outside of key sets like the apartment or Central Perk were not filmed in front of a studio audience, with laughs then added in afterwards.
Shows like The Big Bang Theory, The Connors, and the Frasier revival were all filmed in front of studio audiences, but the success of The Office in the mid-2000s gave rise to a new type of sitcom and, arguably, a new style of sitcom humor. Eschewing a live audience allowed shows to shoot in new and varied locations, and it has allowed for shows to succeed with more off-beat, unconventional jokes. Friends remains one of the most important sitcoms of all time, but it’s clear that even Kudrow sometimes felt the limitations of live studio audience.
