It’s hard to imagine a more beloved actor than Lisa Kudrow. She is the kind of comedic performer who makes every project better, and seems to do so with ease. Her natural charm and razor-sharp comedic timing have given her job security for nearly forty years. From her mega-hit Friends to cult classic sleepers like The Comeback, Kudrow always hits her mark and our funny bones.
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Now, Kudrow is starring in Max’s new horror/comedy, The Parenting, teaming back up with her Clockwatchers co-star Parker Posey as well as Nik Dodani, Brandon Flynn, Edie Falco and Brian Cox. While new projects are always exciting, let’s look back at some of the Romy and Michele star’s past roles and how she built her substantial net worth.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Lisa’s fortune is sitting at an impressive $130 million.
How did Lisa Kudrow become famous?
Believe it or not, the world almost missed out on Lisa Kudrow as a beloved actor. In her early life, Lisa planned on pursuing a career as a researcher, earning a degree in biology from Vassar. However, Kudrow has funnyman Jon Lovitz to thank for getting her into comedy. In an interview with the LA Times, she laid it all out, saying, “I grew up with my brother’s best friend, Jon Lovitz. The summer I graduated college is when he got into Saturday Night Live. I told him, ‘I think I want to give acting a try.’ And he said, ‘Great, go to the Groundlings.’” The Groundlings is a famous Los Angeles comedy theater that launched the careers of stars like Melissa McCarthy, Jennifer Coolidge and Kristen Wiig, and Lisa was no different. After rising through the ranks at the sketch school, she began auditioning for plays and TV spots, landing bit parts in shows like Cheers, Coach and Mad About You.
After a successful string of guest spots in popular sitcoms and small roles in films, Lisa landed the part of Phoebe Buffay in Friends which launched her into the superstar stratosphere. “All I ever wanted to do was be able to support myself as an actor,” she told TODAY last year, “That was the goal.” Well, it’s safe to say that her goal has been met — and then some.
If you know Lisa Kudrow from one project, it's most like the smash-hit sitcom Friends, where she played the loveable goof Phoebe Buffay. Running from 1994-2004, the NBC show is one of the most successful sitcoms in television history, and networks have spent decades trying to recapture the magic that made it a cultural phenomenon. Friends is still the one of the projects that Kudrow gets asked most about, and she continues to have nothing but good things to say. In a 2024 interview with TODAY, she described working alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and the late Matthew Perry. “I won a lottery being on ‘Friends,’” she told them. “We loved each other. Going to work every day was heaven. It was too good to be true, but it really was.”
The cast’s salary has been a topic of discussion ever since the show began airing, and there’s been a lot of transparency on how much the cast made during the run of the show and beyond. During the first season of Friends, Lisa brought home $22,500 an episode, for a grand total of $540,000 for the season. This was before anyone knew how successful the show would be. $540,000 a year would be a lie changing salary for pretty much everyone, but her earnings only went up from there.
As reported by the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, Kudrow and the cast received a pretty passive pay bump for Season 2, earning $40,000 per episode. By Season 3 that number went up even more, reaching $75,000 an episode which pushed them past $1 million for a single season. By Season 4 the cast received $85,000 an episode and then $100,000 an episode for Season 5. This was back in the days of 24-episode TV seasons, so these paychecks were staggeringly hefty. During Season 6, the cast got another pay bump, totaling $3.125 million for the season (or $125,000 per episode) and for Seasons 7 and 8, Kudrow was raking in $750,000 per episode. That’s quite the raise! But it didn’t stop there, because for the show’s final two seasons, each cast member earned $1 million for a single episode, meaning Kudrow took home $24 million per season. This almost unbelievable salary really speaks to the success of the show and how essential each cast member was to its continued relevance.
Even after the show ended it continued making Kudrow and her co-stars money in syndication. According to USA Today, the show still pulls in $1 billion a year from streaming deals and re-runs, and since the stars make 2% of that income, Kudrow is receiving around $20 million a year from work she completed over 20 years ago. Who knew singing “Smelly Cat” and sipping coffee on a cafe couch could be such a lucrative career?
Related: One of Matthew Perry's 'Friends' Co-Stars Plans to Adopt His Dog
How much did Lisa Kudrow make from Romy and Michele’s High School Runion?
If Friends is Lisa Kudrow’s best-known work on the small screen, then Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is her best-known work on the big screen. The 1997 film has become a cult classic, but the now-iconic characters were born out of another project entirely, one that holds a special significance for Kudrow. In a recent appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Lisa revealed that her and Mira Sorvino’s characters first appeared in a play by Robin Schiff, who would later write Romy and Michele script. “That [play] was my first audition, ever, for 'Airhead No. 2,' Michele,” she told Barrymore. “We were these minor characters. We were on stage a total of seven minutes, in and out, for the whole play.”
Another juicy bit of behind-the-scenes tea is that the first Romy and Michele script wasn’t meant to go to theaters. “It was a pilot,” said Kudrow. “We were in the pilot, this actress Christie Mellor and I, Romy and Michele. And it was a pilot and it wasn’t very good.” This feels like proof that everything happens for a reason because adding Mira Sorvino into the mix and taking the story to the big screen was the perfect alchemy to create lasting movie magic. Now, almost 30 years later, it’s been reported by The Hollywood Reporter that we’re getting a sequel, something that Kudrow teased during her Drew Barrymore Show appearance, saying, “There’s a script that’s really good.”
There’s no public information about how much Lisa earned for the movie, but considering its $20 million budget and $29.2 million box office, this late-bloomer cult hit probably didn’t make the actor very much money.
While Phoebe put Kudrow on the comedy map, another of her most popular comedy performances is as has-been sitcom actress Valerie Cherish in The Comeback. The show was considered ahead of its time by many, poking fun at the reality TV genre during its first season in 2005, a full year before The Real Housewives of Orange County would air, and two before the premiere of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The Comeback is unique because the second season of the show didn’t come out until almost 10 years after the first and the show’s potency never waned. Kudrow’s performance earned Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for both seasons. Given the show’s critical success and cult following, it’s not surprising there may be a third season on the way. In a 2024 interview with Newsweek Kudrow spilled the beans when asked if she’d do Season 3. “Oh God, I’d love to,” she admitted. “Michael Patrick King and I are always talking about what would happen next. Always. And it’s been 9, 10 years now. So, we’re due.” Give her another take!
While Kudrow has never spoken publicly about the exact amount she received from working on the show, she has been candid about it being a passion project she created with King. In an interview with TODAY, she attributed her early success as the reason she was able to make The Comeback, saying, "Because I was on Friends, I got to create my own shows that didn't have to be as big as Friends, so I could do something like The Comeback or Web Therapy, and that was really fulfilling." That being said, she served as the show’s co-creator, lead actor, and executive producer, and considering the show aired on HBO, she likely took home a sizeable paycheck, just not as much as Friends.
Related: 10 Famous Comedians Who Auditioned for 'SNL' But Didn't Make the Cut
How much did Lisa Kudrow make from Mad About You?
If you’re a Friends fan, you know that Kudrow’s character Phoebe has a twin sister named Ursula. If you’re a Friends super-fan, then you probably know that Ursula actually existed on screen before Phoebe and before Friends was even a show. Mad About You, another NBC sitcom starring Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser, introduced us to the somewhat aloof waitress Ursula. Kudrow played both twins and stayed on as a recurring character during the run of Mad About You, even as she was starring in Friends. Though Phoebe would never cross over, Ursula appeared in eight episodes of Friends, creating an NBC sitcom universe years before cinematic universes were widely discussed.
Kudrow has never discussed the exact amount of money she made on Mad About You, but she did tell the Smartless podcast how she agreed to a five-episode arc on the show after getting fired from Fraiser, even though her agents advised her not to. “I just went, ‘Yes!’ There’s my rent for the year. I don’t have to get another job.”
Lisa Kudrow has an incredible knack for signing onto hit TV series. Most recently, she starred in No Good Deed alongside Ray Romano, Linda Cardellini, Teyonah Parris, Abbi Jacobson and Matt Rogers. Dreamed up by Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman, the dark comedy is full of twists, turns, and surprises, some of which even the actors didn’t see coming. Talking with TODAY, Kudrow disclosed that they were kept in the dark about some of No Good Deed’s bigger moments, telling them she “didn’t know” how the show ended. "Around Episode Five, Ray [Romano] went to Liz and just said, 'We're playing these people. The characters know exactly what happened, but we don't. So, don't you think we should know?' And then it was a big surprise."
There’s no public information about how much Lisa made for her role, but considering her celebrity status and pitch-perfect resume, it’s safe to assume her salary was one of the biggest on the show. And there’s a chance she may have the opportunity to earn even more, because she’s down for a Season 2, telling TODAY, "It's up to Netflix and Liz, what she wants to do with it next. If she thinks it's worth it and there's room for me and Ray, I'm not saying no. I loved everybody."
How much did Lisa Kudrow make from The Boss Baby?
When you think of Lisa Kudrow’s most famous roles, you probably don’t immediately think of DreamWorks’ animated feature The Boss Baby, but the kiddie blockbuster and its sequel pulled in massive numbers in the global box office. Voicing the Boss Baby’s mother, Kudrow reteamed with former Friends guest star Alec Baldwin who voices the titular tot. When asked by Reuters about their reunion, she said, “That was really fun. And it's funny to think Phoebe, like who breaks up with Alec Baldwin? Why would you send him on his way?”
Kudrow has never spoken in public about what she earned from the role, but seeing as the first film earned a massive $528 million at the box office and $146 million for its sequel, it’s safe to assume she made a pretty penny off her time in the voice acting booth.
Related: Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino Just Had Their Own Romy and Michele Reunion and We're Loving It
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