Lisa Kudrow has revealed that she and her Friends co-stars earn a mammoth $AUD27 million in residuals every year, decades after the show ended.
The Emmy-winning actress made the surprising admission in an interview published by the Times of London last week.
It’s widely known that the six co-stars were all friends in real life, and during pay negotiations agreed to present a united group to have an equal salary. They went from earning $AUD32,000 per episode in Season 1, to $AUD1.3 million per episode during Seasons 9 and 10.
The news of the staggering amount in residuals still paid 22 years later has gone viral, prompting Mediaweek to compare the residuals to that of other hit shows of the time.
Jerry Seinfeld reportedly still earns a ‘solid income’ from his namesake show Seinfeld, but apparently not the other cast members.
Similarly, IMDb supposes about The Big Bang Theory: “Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, and Kaley Cuoco own one percent shares of the show… If the series makes one billion dollars a year, that’s an extra $10 million for the lead actors.”
However, the recent death of Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek – whose wife controversially used a public fundraiser to secure their home afterwards – has highlighted that not all cast members of hit series have such lucrative residual deals.
View this post on Instagram
Lisa Kudrow reveals Friends residuals
Kudrow, 62, further said in the Times story that she “will never say anything bad about Friends” because the show is “still incredible work”.
Perhaps justifying the extraordinary residuals, she added, “There are plenty of shows with big-name comedians from that time, and they are not funny, but Friends is.”
Kudrow played Phoebe Buffay for all 10 seasons of Friends from 1994 to 2004. She shared that she rewatched the entire series after co-star Matthew Perry’s passing in 2023 at 54.
“After Matthew died, I watched the show again,” she said.
“Before, I only saw what I did wrong or could have done better. But for the first time, I truly appreciated just how great it was.
“There was a genius at work. And whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again.”
Top image: Lisa Kudrow. Image: Instagram