The 59-year-old Emmy winner, who was speaking to The Daily Beast on what it would take to bring back the hit NBC sitcom, which aired for ten seasons from 1994 to 2004, lamented the absence of diversity and inclusiveness on the program.
She asserted that if such a project were to ever be approved by its authors, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, it would require a different cast for actors of that age. “I believe it would have to be more up-to-date, and more participation from other backgrounds is not a terrible idea,
The six lead casts of the show, who were portrayed by Jennifer Aniston , Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc, were also all white, according to Kudrow, who also provided a reason for this.
She said, “Well, I felt like it was a program made by two Brandeis alumni who wrote about their lives after graduation. “And for programs specifically, you write what you know when it’s going to be a comedy that’s character-driven.”
Kudrow continued, “They have no right to write tales about what it’s like to be a person of color. Where was the training, I believe, the major issue at the time?”
The 65-year-old Kauffman has already acknowledged her worries regarding the lack of diversity on the program, saying at the 2020 ATX TV festival that she “would’ve made very different judgments” if she were creating the show now. She claimed that the all-white casting choice “was definitely not intentional” the previous year.
She most notably promised $4 million to Brandeis University’s African and African American Studies department in June to address the show’s lack of diversity.
In the last 20 years, I’ve learned a lot, Kauffman told the Los Angeles Times. “Recognizing and acknowledging your responsibility is difficult. Looking in the mirror at oneself hurts. I regret not having known better 25 years ago.”
