Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JUSTINE ELIAS N.Y. TIMES
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
``There is no such thing as an allergy headache,'' she says gravely. ``I am concerned now. I don't want to go on.''
Never mind that she has yet to master the lines for her biggest scene, a comic argument over Darwin and evolutionary theory. This woman knows about headaches.
Kudrow, 32, is one of only a few actors ever to play different characters on two sitcoms at the same time. She is best known as Phoebe, the placid, trend-surfing waitress and folk singer on NBC's ``Friends,'' the role that recently won her an Emmy nomination. On NBC's ``Mad About You,'' she makes frequent appearances as the absent-minded waitress Ursula.
(The two characters, who are twins and bitter rivals, have yet to appear in a scene together on either show.)
So far, handling two roles hasn't been too much for Kudrow, who accepted the ``Friends'' job only after being assured she could continue to appear as Ursula.
Kudrow, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, began to study improvisational comedy with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles theater company, 10 years ago.
Before that she had been at Vassar College, getting a degree in biology. She had intended to become a physician like her father - a real expert on headaches. She hadn't done any acting since junior high school, though she had continued to dream about life as a performer.
``At Vassar I was so afraid of failure, I studied about 10 hours a day,'' said Kudrow. ``But every time I was home from school, I kept thinking, `I know I can do this.' ''
Former ``Saturday Night Live'' actor Jon Lovitz, a friend of Kudrow's brother, David, and a Groundlings alumnus, encouraged her to audition for the improvisational troupe. She was turned down at first, but took acting classes with the group and was accepted in 1987.
Her first job outside the Groundlings was a bit part that she describes as ``the silliest girl who ever lived'' in a play adapted into a failed television pilot. That led to appearances on ``Cheers,'' ``Coach,'' ``Bob'' and, eventually, ``Mad About You.'' (She made her movie debut in 1990 as a drug addict in Sondra Locke's ``Impulse,'' but her part was cut almost entirely from the film.)
It was that first job beyond the Groundlings that got her started on what she calls ``the idiot track.'' And having once played a blind date for Woody Harrelson's character on ``Cheers,'' she knows how indelible such a character can become. Last spring, at the close of the debut season of ``Friends,'' Entertainment Weekly named Kudrow (rather than Phoebe) ``cool ditz'' of 1995.
``I don't see Phoebe as being dumb,'' she says of the most offbeat character in the '90s-style makeshift family that has made ``Friends'' so successful. ``She snaps sometimes. When people are making fun of her a little too much, she'll say, `Back off.' I like that. There's no such thing as a person who is always sweet.''
Conan O'Brien, the host of NBC's ``Late Night,'' has known Kudrow since 1985, when they took an improvisational acting class together. He recalled an improvisational show in which Kudrow played a ``hyperintelligent, overly mannered professor who would rattle off all these medical terms.''
``In the same show,'' he continued, ``she played a girl on spring break in Palm Springs, a person without a brain in her head who had too much to drink. What you're seeing on `Friends' is just a small part of what she can do. She has always been funny in a unique way. She never borrowed from anyone.''
Over the summer, Kudrow halfheartedly auditioned for what she calls ``girlfriend'' roles in two feature films: ``They were comedies, and I didn't think they were funny,'' she says. And she got married, to Michel Stern, a French-born Los Angeles advertising executive.
Filming of ``Friends'' for the new season began in July, so her future in the movies will have to wait at least until the spring.
``Looking back,'' Kudrow says, ``I am stunned that at only 21 years old, when you really don't know anything - sorry, you just don't - I knew enough to know that if I wanted to pursue a dream, now's the time to do it, before I have too many responsibilities, before I am giving up too much to try it.''
by CNB