Lisa Kudrow

“First one is All About Eve. I saw this when I was, like, a pre-teen and was just blown away by the intelligent way they spoke. The dialogue is unbelievable. Bette Davis is a theater actress who feels like she’s aging out of ingenue roles. Anne Baxter is a young, up-and-coming actress that everyone just adores, and she turns out to be a big, fat liar. George Sanders plays Addison DeWitt, a critic. It’s so easy to hurt people without hurting them. That’s what I got out of it.”

“Right next to it. Okay. It’s Now, Voyager. This was my Mother’s favorite movie. And, again, it’s Bette Davis, who was one of the most interesting women. Really strong. Just sort of knew who she was and put that in all of her characters. I started on Friends, went out to the Stage 24, and looked at the plaque at Warner Brothers, and they shot some stuff from Now, Voyager, it was on the plaque, and I was so excited to tell my mom. Yeah, that was thrilling.”

“Another important movie for me when I was young: Philadelphia Story, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant. I mean, talk about just throwing lines away. They were so effortless, while performing, but effortless and sharp, bright dialogue. And every time I saw it, I sort of changed my mind depending on who I was. Katharine Hepburn was in the play and she needed to boost her career, so smarty-pants optioned it to make it a movie and got George Cukor to direct it. That’s a big deal.”

“This movie, Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks. I had already seen Modern Romance. Fantastic. But anyway, Defending Your Life, with Meryl Streep, no less. Another one where, every time I see this movie, I realize something different. This movie has a lot of insight, I think, into how the universe works, in a way. Fear is the opposite of love and the cure for fear is love. So it’s a fearful guy, so afraid of himself, and it isn’t until he surrenders to love that he can get where he’s going.”

“When I was a kid, I saw 12 Angry Men on TV. Phenomenal actors. And it was a play, and it’s all shot, basically, in a jury room. And one juror who’s the holdout, Henry Fonda, who’s pointing out to everybody, 'You’re making some biased decisions. Not all the evidence adds up.' And so everyone’s getting so mad at him. For me, it really, really highlighted the fact that, ooh, juries are problematic and might not always get a fair trial. Anyway, 12 Angry Men, so good and true.”