Jane Leeves has revealed that Lisa Kudrow was fired from the Frasier pilot because she simply was not right for the part. The firing came after only three days, which is shorter than most people take to answer a group chat. Leeves, who played Daphne Moon on the series, explained the story over dinner during a recent podcast appearance. The tale involves a network with opinions and one decisive recommendation.

While the firing sounds brutal, the story behind it has no villain, only mismatched energy and one very honest verdict.

Jane Leeves explained that Lisa Kudrow’s natural vulnerability clashed with Roz Doyle, who needed backbone opposite Kelsey Grammer. Grammer’s Frasier Crane would have looked mean trading barbs with someone so delicate, and Roz had to hit back with real bite.

“Like, you can’t you can’t even fathom that someone this genius would ever get fired,” said Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his podcast.

He then added, “But it was she just wasn’t right for the role.”

Leeves added on Dinner’s On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson that the writers had not fully figured out Roz yet. The network adored Kudrow and pushed for her, even though the creative team preferred Peri Gilpin. After the firing, James Burrows, who had just worked with Gilpin on Cheers, told the team to hire her and promised to handle the network. Burrows then hired Kudrow for Friends the following year.

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While Gilpin turned Roz into a long career, Kudrow turned Phoebe into a lifetime of strangers requesting one particular song.

Lisa Kudrow flatly refuses to sing 'Smelly Cat' when strangers stop her on the street and request it live. She played Phoebe Buffay for a decade, and the guitar anthem became attached to her public image. Admirers still greet her as though a live rendition is owed years after the series ended. The topic surfaced on the Fresh Air podcast, where Kudrow said she really does not want to do that.

The Fresh Air chat also covered the Emmy-nominated final season of The Comeback, where host Tonya Mosley explored how Kudrow plays an actress who endures almost anything to keep working. Separately, Kudrow revisited Friends after Matthew Perry’s death, turning old episodes into a bedtime ritual. Entire scenes without Phoebe felt brand new, since she had never watched them before. In hindsight, those three days on Frasier were merely a brief detour before Friends became her home for the next ten years.

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What are your thoughts on Lisa Kudrow’s firing from Frasier before she found Friends? Let us know in the comments.