Lisa Kudrow, who plays the role of Phoebe Buffay in popular sitcom Friends, has said the series was very progressive at the time it was first aired in 1994. Defending the show against recent criticism on the show lacking diversity, she said it would be completely different if it was created today, starting off with a more inclusive cast. In an interaction with The Sunday Times, Kudrow said, “It’d be completely different. It would not be an all-white cast, for sure. I’m not sure what else, but, to me, it should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong.”
“Also, this show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together? We had surrogacy too. It was, at the time, progressive,” she added.
The cast of Friends including, Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, will next be seen together in a special reunion episode. Work for the episode, which is set to air on HBO Max, has currently been stalled due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown.