Lisa Kudrow recalls 'insane' choice to return to work 10 days after giving birth in 1998

Lisa Kudrow has revealed she returned to work almost immediately after giving birth to her only child, son Julian, in 1998.

The 62-year-old actress, who opened up about feeling like an afterthought on Friends, recently revealed on CBS Sunday Morning that she appeared on The Tonight Show just ten days after giving birth.

Kudrow shares Julian, 27, with husband Michel Stern, 67. 

'I'm looking back, and I had given birth to my son and 10 days later I was at a meeting. I did the Tonight Show. And then was in a meeting for Analyze This,' she told Tracy Smith. 

After welcoming her son on May 7, she remembered, 'My agent's like, "Yeah, you'll be okay. You're not shooting until July, and it's May. It's no big deal."'

However, the star said she ended up filming significantly earlier than July. 

She shared, 'In the meeting Billy Crystal's saying, "Yeah, I mean, you look great. Are you sure you're able to do this? When did you give birth?" And I told him. He's like, "Alright, well, we start Thursday."'

Her loved ones even encouraged her to head back to work. 

The former Friends star said, 'I remember my husband's parents were visiting from France. My parents were around. Everyone around went, "Of course, you can do it."

'And I said, "But it's wrong. I have a newborn."'

She was assured by her camp that 'a baby nurse will go with you [to] look after the baby. [The] baby won't remember anything. It's fine.'

In retrospect, the longtime actress said it was 'insane' to pick up her work schedule so soon after becoming a new mom.

Kudrow even shared that she suffered a 'smidge' of postpartum depression.

'I thought, "This is insane," but I need to defer to everybody else because I know my brain's not working right now. Too many hormones, I'm a little like, just like a smidge depressed,' she recounted.

However, the Hollywood vet said she's 'not mad at anybody' for the way things were handled.  

In a 2019 Mother's Day post shared online, Julian gushed, 'You are the most caring and supportive mother I could have asked for!'

The Romy and Michele's High School Reunion star is currently on a press run for her HBO series The Comeback, which returned for its third season on March 22.

In the cult comedy series, she plays Valerie Cherish, an aging actress who is desperate to stay relevant and ends up starring in the first sitcom written entirely by AI.

The show originally premiered in 2005 to widespread critical acclaim, but was canceled by HBO after just one season due to low ratings.

Despite the cancellation, it continued to build a cult following and was repeatedly ranked by critics as one of the best TV shows of the modern era, which led to it being revived for a second season in 2014.

The second season was another ratings flop, becoming the least-viewed original scripted series on cable.

The third season has received rave reviews from critics.

Kudrow has confirmed that the third installment is the last, regardless of ratings and reviews.

This comes after Kudrow revealed she felt 'nobody cared' about her character on Friends while the show was still airing.

Speaking in an interview, the actress claimed that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, the late Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer eclipsed her in popularity while the series was still on television.

'Nobody cared about me,' Kudrow told the Independent. 'There were certain parts of [my talent agency] that just referred to me as "the sixth Friend."'

As Friends became a megahit from its second season, several of her costars leveraged that success to secure choice film roles, but Kudrow appeared to think the same kinds of deals eluded her.

'There was no vision for me, and no expectations about the kind of career I could have,' she said. 'There was just, like, "Boy, is she lucky she got on that show."'

Despite feeling unappreciated earlier in her career, Kudrow has since found enduring success beyond Friends, including on her HBO series The Comeback. 

Kudrow, who co-created the series, was joined by her co-creator, Michael Patrick King, for the interview ahead of its third season.

He appeared astonished to learn that she was not drowning in offers amid the success of Friends, and pointed out that she was also the first member of the cast to win an Emmy, which she received for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1998.

According to Kudrow, it was only when she starred as the wife of a psychiatrist treating a mob boss in the 1999 comedy Analyze This, which starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, that she began to get more compelling offers. 

'That’s when the agents and business people started circling, wanting to put me in romantic comedies and things,' she said, even though she was certain that the strategy wouldn't work because she didn't consider herself 'adorable' enough.

Before moving up into more prestigious film roles, Kudrow was mostly offered low-budget independent films, such as 1997's Clockwatchers, or small supporting roles, as in Albert Brooks's 1996 comedy Mother.

Despite the slim pickings, she remembered being honored to work with her Clockwatchers costars, Parker Posey and Toni Collette, as well as her Mother costar and director, Brooks. 

Kudrow ventured a theory that she had been harmed by reports that she had taken the lead role in getting her costars to join together and collectively bargain when it came time to renegotiate their contracts ahead of season three.

The main cast managed to ink a deal with Warner Bros, which had wanted to only negotiate with each actor individually in hopes of paying some of them less, which led them to make each equal, increasing salaries for each subsequent season, with a major jump from $125,000 per episode to $750,000 per episode in seasons seven and eight. 

By seasons nine and ten, each actor was making an astounding $1 million per episode, a feat that has rarely been equaled.

But according to Kudrow, her talent agency was upset about rumors that she had taken the lead on the successful negotiating strategy, even though she denied being responsible.

'I absolutely was not the ringleader,' Kudrow said. 'And that was reported, and it wasn’t true. My team were very angry about that. It was leaked sort of as a warning to other clients like, "Don’t do something like that."' 

She hoped that people would think she was 'really smart' because of the successful negotiations, 'But my team were like, "No, this is not good! We’re furious that they’re saying this about you."'

Ironically, her agents stood to make significant financial gains from her windfall, as they are traditionally paid around ten percent of what their clients earn.

In another recent conversation with Lily Tomlin for Interview Magazine, Kudrow clarified that Phoebe was not particularly like her, despite how she became so identified with the role. 

'At first, Phoebe was very, very far from me,' she said. 'It took a lot of work to justify the things she would say and do. Not in an irritating way - it was fun.'

Over time, though, the part began to shift as she became more comfortable with it. 

'Over the course of 10 years, a little bit of her came into me,' Kudrow continued. 'I lightened up a little more and read some books on spirituality and things, just to try to understand her.'

Kudrow also pushed back on the idea that she 'only play[s] ditzes,' and admitted that she doesn't even consider Phoebe a ditz anymore.

'In 1994, it was like, "I love her. She’s such a ditz." And it’s like, yeah, OK, that was what a ditz was to us. Someone who wasn’t toeing the line,' she said.