One of the stars of Friends has pulled back the curtain on a peculiar feeling she experienced while working with Emma Stone. She felt that Stone considered her “the worst actress” to have worked with, highlighting the self-doubt actors often face.
Lisa Kudrow thought Emma Stone saw her as ‘the worst actress’
The seeds of self-doubt can be sown by the most fleeting of impressions. For Lisa Kudrow, a harmless encounter with Emma Stone left her harboring a secret worry. She felt Stone viewed her as her biggest acting regret.
Kudrow revealed in a March 2026 Vanity Fair interview that she starred alongside Stone in two films, 2009’s Paper Man and 2010’s Easy A. This came up as she discussed feeling self-doubt, particularly while struggling to cry on cue in scenes with Stone.
“Emma’s phenomenally talented, and she was then. And I had done, like, a smaller movie called Paper Man. That’s when I first met Emma, and she was even younger,” recalled Kudrow.
“I was going through this period of, it lasted like five years, where I couldn’t cry. There were no tears coming, and in this scene in particular, I was feeling devastated. I mean, everything there, and I was crying, but no tears were coming out, but I was crying. It’s just there were no tears, just dry. I don’t know what, it was the craziest thing,” she revealed before claiming that she felt Stone considered her “the worst actress.”
Lisa Kudrow’s anxiety peaked during the Easy A scene, her mind fixated on Emma Stone’s possible perception. She feared Stone thought she was a subpar actress, a concern rooted in Stone having seen her tearful struggle in Paper Man.
However, Kudrow clarified that she is now able to cry on cue, overcoming her earlier struggle. She humorously compared her current tearful state to Teri Garr’s character in Tootsie, saying she cries like it’s a nervous tic.
Originally reported by Sibanee Gogoi on ComingSoon.
