Lisa Kudrow Says Even Sandra Bullock Has Accidentally Called Her Phoebe

Lisa Kudrow appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and the first thing guest host Anthony Anderson asked was whether people ever refer to her as Phoebe. Well, as it turns out it’s not just us common folks who confuse Kudrow with her zany character on Friends.

“You know what, I was at a party, a big party, and I was talking to Sandra Bullock,” Kudrow told Anderson. “I’m name dropping. I have to. But it’s true. And we were talking and she’s like ‘Well, I guess you’ll just have to talk to yourself, Phoebe.’ She called me Phoebe. But she caught herself. She went, ‘What did I just do?’”

Anderson reminded Kudrow that it’s been 20 years since Friends came to an end in 2004, and asked what the first week was like for her after the production concluded. She replied that she had forgotten what it felt like until about a week ago, when she recalled that “apparently I was crying in the kitchen.”

“My son was five and he wanted to know why I was crying,” she said. “My husband said, ‘Well, because she’s sad because Friends is done.’ And he said, ‘But she can see her friends. She could just call them.’ I had no clue he never knew what the show was called!”

Anderson then asked a question we probably all have wondered about: Does Kudrow ever find herself watching old episodes of Friends, a series that seems to air everywhere all the time?

“I do now, but I didn’t forever,” Kudrow confirmed. “I couldn’t watch myself at all. Even if I wanted to, the embarrassment of somebody walking into the room…”

Kudrow was on Jimmy Kimmel Live not to promote the endless reruns of Friends, but to tease Time Bandits, an upcoming Apple TV+ series based on Terry Gilliam’s 1981 movie. The family-friendly, 10-episode series was created for television by Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris, and Taika Waititi, and premieres on July 24.

A synopsis for the series describe it as “an unpredictable journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves and their newest recruit: an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin. Together, they set out on a thrilling quest to save the boy’s parents — and the world. Guided by Lisa Kudrow, the eccentric crew of bandits embark on epic adventures while evil forces threaten their conquests and life as they know it.”