Lisa Kudrow has claimed new sitcoms are "afraid" to make jokes that will make people "uncomfortable".
In a recent conversation with Lily Tomlin for Interview magazine, the Friends actress argued that the TV sitcom genre hasn't evolved enough.
"30 Rock and Seinfeld and Friends were really funny and really well written. But I'm not drawn to new sitcoms that are multi-camera in front of an audience because I'm not buying it," she declared. "I don't know if that's just because I've seen too many single-camera sitcoms - I think we need to get back to being able to tell jokes. I feel like we've been too afraid to make jokes that might make people uncomfortable."
Kudrow went on to point out that the most successful TV programmes haven't relied upon "tame" jokes.
"They're jokes that are kind of, 'I can't believe you just said that.' Comedy is about surprise. You need things you didn't see coming," the 62-year-old mused.
Kudrow played Phoebe Buffay on Friends from 1994 until 2004. The popular series also featured Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer.
And while Tomlin insisted that she found Buffay to be an "honest and true" character within the cast, the Emmy Award nominee recalled how the eccentric protagonist was often labelled as a "ditz" by critics in the '90s.
"At the time, it was like, 'She's such a ditz. How is it that you only play ditzes?' And I thought, 'Is she a ditz?' To me, she wasn't," she noted. "At first, Phoebe was very, very far from me. It took a lot of work to justify the things she would say and do. Not in an irritating way - it was fun. Over the course of 10 years, a little bit of her came into me. I lightened up a little more and read some books on spirituality and things, just to try to understand her."
Kudrow is currently promoting the third and final season of the HBO sitcom, The Comeback.
She first played the character of Valerie Cherish in season one, which aired in 2005, and reprised the role when it was revived for a second season in 2014.
