So while doing my morning gossip-scouring rounds, I noticed some pap snapped pictures of Lisa Kudrow in a bikini on vacation, and it just didn't seem right. I mean, she's never really been pitched as that sort of celebrity. But I guess with everyone either in D.C. or Utah, they're looking for anything. Anyway, I just thought that I mention that. And here's my interview with Lisa Kudrow.



There’s that old adage about showbiz, often attributed to W.C. Fields: “Never work with children or animals.” Sage advice, it would seem. But Lisa Kudrow begs to differ. And it’s a good thing, too, as her new film, “Hotel for Dogs,” features both children and animals quite heavily.

“I don’t agree with that adage at all,” Kudrow says. “The kids are more professional than me, that’s for sure. They just don’t have a minute off. If there’s a break, it’s, ‘OK, you guys, back to the classroom.’”

In the movie, Kudrow stars as the less-than-desirable foster mother to siblings played by Emma Roberts (Julia’s neice) and Jake T. Austin (of Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place”). In a more serious film, Kudrow’s washed-up, failed musician character would be a monster, but in this, her meanness is comic relief. “To me, it’s funny mean,” Kudrow says. “If they were dead serious, then that would be harsh. I had to redo a couple of lines to soften it because I got too mean.”

Best known for her work as airhead Phoebe on “Friends,” Kudrow has spent most of her time since the show ended five years ago doing “independent films that a lot of people don’t see,” such as “The Opposite of Sex” and “Happy Endings,” both directed by her friend, Don Roos, with whom she is also producing a Web series. “We have a similar sense of humor,” she says of their frequent collaborations. “The same things crack us up — not that everything he does is funny.”

She also produced, wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed HBO series “The Comeback.” And while she’s most famous for her work on the small screen, Kudrow doesn’t see herself returning to television anytime soon. “Fans of ‘Friends’ like me as Phoebe,” she explains. “So unless I’m going to do that character on TV, then I think it’s an adjustment they have to make, and I don’t know that any network has time for an audience to make that kind of adjustment.”

So instead, Kudrow will stay on the big screen, even though movies weren’t a part of her life growing up. “I never went to the movies when I was little,” she says. “I never saw ‘Bambi.’ No one took me.” She hasn’t even seen that other big dog movie out now starring that other former “Friend” — Jennifer Aniston’s “Marley and Me.” “I hear it’s really sad,” Kudrow admits. “I’m afraid to take my son to see it.”