Lisa Kudrow Recalls Watching 'Will & Grace' After 9/11 for Her Mental Health: 'It Was the Break I Needed'
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The actress spoke to PEOPLE about the importance of mental health research at the UCLA WOW 2023 Mental Health Summit
Lisa Kudrow supports mental health research.
The actress, 59, spoke about the significance of fundraising for mental health at the UCLA WOW 2023 Mental Health Summit on May 4 in Los Angeles.
"The important thing is that we keep funding research so that they can keep exploring ways to address mental health issues that talk therapy might not be able to handle, that meditation might not be able to address," the actress told PEOPLE exclusively.
Related:10 Things to Try for a Quick Mental Health Boost
Kudrow says that although laughter can be the best medicine in dark times — "for mild struggles it's extremely helpful" — she also realizes that the reaction and laughter she got from her work on comedies like Friends wasn't actually about her at all.
"I do take the time to be aware of it and know that it's not really me," she tells PEOPLE. "It always felt, anyway, when an actor or a musician or any kind of artist is doing something, something's coming through them. And that's what I think an audience — I'm getting a little too, I don't know, spiritual or something for this — but that it's coming through someone and that's what an audience is picking up on and liking so much."
She also remembers how watching another sitcom, Will & Grace, allowed her to escape from post-9/11 reality, even for just a few minutes.
"After 9/11, all I was doing was watching the news and every single thing I saw was someone who knew someone that was in one of the towers or something like that," she recalls. "I started watching Will & Grace and I said, 'Oh, okay. Oh, I wonder, they're in New York. Oh God, they're in New York. I wonder who they knew in the buildings, if they knew anyone.'"
"Then I went, 'Oh, no, wait, no, because they would've shot this before 9/11. You work in that TV, you know. Don't be an idiot.' Then I went, 'No, no. This is fiction. In this world, it didn't even happen.'"
And then I just needed that break, and I was so grateful that there was something to watch where 9/11 hadn't happened at all. It was a break that I really needed."
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