Lisa Kudrow
For most actors, being part of a lasting entity, whether it is a popular TV series or a film franchise, is the most double-edged of swords, pitting job security and a steady income against a typecast career in stasis. But it sometimes can prove to be lucrative, if you happen to be part of the most successful sitcom of the 1990's, as it has for Lisa Kudrow.
As soon as she left her days as hippy-dippy singer-songwriter Phoebe Buffay behind, Kudrow has continued her career in films like Happy Endings, Kabluey, P.S. I Love You, Hotel For Dogs, and received her Emmy nomination for Oustanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series for the HBO series The Comeback, which she herself co-created. Her latest role is as single mom Karen Burton in the teen comedy Bandslam.
We first asked the now 46 year-old former Groundling what it made her decided to work on a teen film like Bandslam.
"Hmm," Lisa pauses, before she speaks up, "I loved the relationship of the character that I was asked to get. I loved the relationship between the mother and the son. I actually thought it was daunting because he wrote in under the description of her that she was the kind of mother they wished he had, so that was a little intimidating, but I thought it would be fun to try."
Another thing Lisa says she liked about the script was how more realistic and three-dimensional was in its portrayal of teenagers.
"I just liked that there were things about it that felt really honest to me about kids and the angst and the struggle, not every teen story is about drug abuse or eating disorders," she explains, "Not that there's anything wrong with those, but I thought it was nice that there was one that was really just about"¦It can be really tough even without those other things. There's just everything in the world is going on when you're in high school. You know, it's one of the biggest transitions, I think, for all of us, so, and it's a really hard time."
Being one of the lucky few actors who truly get to reach a point of being the masters of their own destiny with their careers, Kudrow shared with
Lisa Kudrow
us what are the motivating factors that attracts her to projects, particularly this film."Well, sometimes it's the people that I'd be working with," Lisa states, "I was excited. All I knew about working with this is Todd Graff, to be honest with you, and I was excited to work with him. And, also, reading the script, I felt that reading a story that's told well and characters that seem layered and there's something that's surprising within there, then, I'm willing to jump in."
"You never know what's going to happen between the script and the whole post-production process and shooting it," she adds, "But this time, it worked out well. You know, Todd did a great job and I felt that the finished product surpassed what was already a great script."
Director and co-writer Todd Graff has acted in several films including The Abyss, Strange Days, and Death to Smoochy. We asked Lisa whether the fact that Graff was an actor made her more motivated to do Bandslam.
"I think so and also, his love of music," Kudrow reveals, "I think just the fact he's talented helped. He knew exactly what he wanted. He was in complete control. It's not the first movie he's directed, but it's nice when you have such confidence in the director that when they are giving you a note, you know exactly why they're giving it and you know exactly what they need in their scene ten steps ahead."
Playing against Kudrow as her son on film is Gaelan Connell, who has established himself well already as a child star with roles in Chocolat and A Dirty Shame.
"I was pretty happy," she says, when asked about her chemistry with Connell on-screen
Bandslam was mostly shot in Austin, which Lisa says was a pleasant environment to work in.
"It was fine shooting in Austin." Kudrow says, "Austin, I've shot there a couple of times and it's a great place because they are happy to have you."
One of her co-stars is none other than Vanessa Hudgens, who became an overnight teen idol after the surprise success of the TV movie franchise High School Musical. We asked Kudrow if she ever at all felt compelled to give guidance to her young co-stars like the now very famous Hudgens
Lisa Kudrow
as the sole grown-up of the film's top-bill actors."No, I don't give her advice," Lisa states, "We've never talked about it. And I think she's handling it well. Yeah, it doesn't seem to define her, I don't know. It doesn't seem like she's buying into it too much, to a dangerous level. She seems to be really close to her family and I think that's important."
A particularly intriguing aspect of the film is a surprising cameo role from David Bowie. We asked Lisa whether or not she got to meet the rock legend during filming.
"No, I never met him and that would have been fun for me, but I wasn't there when they were shooting that, so I lost," Kudrow replies.
Being that Bandslam centers so much on rock fandom among teens, we asked Kudrow if she herself ever wrote a fan letter as a teen.
"I may have to for David Cassidy, I may have." she admits, "I know I started my own fan club for him. But I did. I wrote away for photos and I asked the girls to come over after school and if they each gave me a nickel, that would cover the cost for the refreshments and the photos."
"Mothers would drop their girls off and say, 'I just want to thank you so much for doing this.'" Lisa continues, "I was always sort of treated like an adult by my friends' parents, who would like take me aside and let me know that we were on the same team and it was funny."
We continued the topic by asking Lisa what kind of music she herself is into.
"Well, a lot of people, music-wise," Kudrow replies, "I mean, David Bowie, In fact, right now, because I've just discovered now it's about songs, by the way, it's not really albums or artists anymore, 'The Man Who Sold The World', that song, David Bowie's song and also the Nirvana cover of it, so I kind of listen to those in a loop. So I don't know how long that's going to last, it's been weeks."
In the film, her character's son Will, played by Gaelan Connell, is the class outcast who often at the mercy of bullies. Kudrow shared with us her worst memory of high
Lisa Kudrow
school."Well, the thing I can't forget is how I felt inside, which was miserable, just miserable," Lisa reveals, "And there wasn't anything really horrifying going on, it was just the comfort in 'I don't fit in here, so I'll just wait for college for my life to start. I'll just have to wait a couple of years.' And also, my parents reminding me, 'Please don't worry. When you're in college, that's when it's going to click,' and they were right."
However, unlike Will with his band, Lisa says she had no inkling to join in any kind of extracurricular activity.
"Early on in high school, I did think, maybe I should try out for cheerleading," she says, "I wanted to see if that was a good fit for me, that sort of normal mainstream social path, and it just wasn't at all."
However, when she was asked whether she was geeky or popular in high school, Kudrow says she found herself surprisingly square in the middle of the social totem pole.
"I felt like"¦I had four friends and we seemed to be pretty well-respected by whatever those popular people were," Lisa recalls, "And luckily, we were at a school, and maybe because they respected us, they weren't cruel. But it didn't seem like there was anybody really cruel, we certainly weren't part of that football player/cheerleader crowd, which is usually, I think, the focus of a high school"
"Actually, we were into new wave music," she adds, "Not quite punk, not that angry, but thrift shop clothes stuff, going in Sunset clubs to see certain groups, so we certainly weren't those people. And, yeah, studying really hard to get into good schools back east. That was our goal."
Her hard work has paid off with huge dividends today as Lisa now calls the shots, not only as an actor, but as a producer. She shared with us what got her into the producer role and what her plans for the future will be.
"Right after Friends ended, I started getting into producing," Kudrow says, "I partnered up with Dan Bukatinski, so we've been working together for five years and Don Russ joined us for certain projects, so that's great. And with that, part of me knew that whatever I did next
Lisa Kudrow
in television I had to be involved on the creative level and producing it.""And so, that's what it was all about and we did The Comeback and produced it as well as created it and we just kept going," she adds, "And one thing that just felt the one thing that's truly just producing is this series for NBC, which is a British series called Who Do You Think You Are? So, yeah, that's going to be in January, that's going to be on, and that truly is producing. I'm in one of the episodes, but for the most part, it is."
