Namely, the 62-year-old star stated that Phoebe Buffay from the popular comedy series was not dumb, during a conversation with actress Lily Tomlin for an article in Interview Magazine. "At the time, it was like: 'She's such a ditz. How come you only play ditzy characters?' And I thought: Is she a ditz? To me, she wasn't," Kudrow recalled the public's reaction to her character. When asked who called Phoebe a ditz, she replied everyone. "Everyone called her that. In 1994, it was like: 'I love her. She's such a ditz.' And it was like okay. She was a ditz to us because she was someone who didn't follow the rules," Kudrow conveyed. Kudrow admitted that it took her some time to connect with her character, but it eventually happened over the long run of the series. "Initially, Phoebe was very, very different from me. It took a lot of effort to justify the things she would say and do. Not in an annoying way, it was fun. Over 10 years, a bit of her 'entered' me. I relaxed a bit more and read some books on spirituality and similar things, just to try to understand her," she said. NBC's comedy series about six friends living in New York aired from 1994 to 2004. It also starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and Matthew Perry. Phoebe was a musician who worked various jobs throughout the series. Kudrow won an Emmy Award in 1998 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of the quirky character.