Lisa Kudrow on Who Do You Think You Are?: "We Thought for Sure He Was Dead — and He Was Alive and Well. That Gave Me Great Hope."

Emmy Award-winning actress Lisa Kudrow — beloved as Phoebe Buffay on Friends — returns as executive producer for Season 2 of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, airing Fridays at 8 p.m. Premier Guide Miami sat down to find out what that means — and what comes next.

Emmy Award-winning actress Lisa Kudrow — beloved as Phoebe Buffay on Friends — returns as executive producer for Season 2 of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, airing Fridays at 8 p.m. The series follows celebrities as they trace their family trees, uncovering stories linked to American and international history. Kudrow was the first celebrity to shoot for the show and was deeply involved in the research process for Vanessa Williams's episode.

On what drew her to the show and her own family history: "Before tracing or discovering this Holocaust story, I knew there was something there and I was too afraid to explore it because I thought it would be too overwhelming. You don't want to start thinking of yourself or your family as just victims. What's fascinating and what drew me to this show when I first saw it was that it's not just names and dates. You can actually understand a lot about what your family was going through and what was happening in their world that made them make some important decisions that changed the course of your lineage."

On the discovery that changed everything: "I learned that there was a lot of antisemitism and people could survive the Holocaust, survive even a concentration camp, go back to their home, and then get killed. And we thought that's what happened to my relative — and he was alive and well. That gave me great hope that sometimes things do work out."

On why she selected Vanessa Williams for Season 2: "There are a lot of reasons why we're lucky to have Vanessa Williams do the show. Vanessa's intellectually curious. She's a fan of history. When someone's invested in learning and finding out what's important here — not what kind of information necessarily — that's what really matters. And everybody knows Vanessa. It is a TV show and we do want people to watch it, so a lot of people are going to want to tune in to see what Vanessa finds."

On the challenge of the African American research wall and Vanessa's extraordinary documentation: "With the African-American stories, there's just trying to find information. Usually there's that wall of slavery where it's almost impossible. There are no surnames and slaves aren't listed by name. So it can be almost impossible to get records. We got really lucky with Vanessa's because it is extraordinary — the documentation of both of her paternal great-grandfathers. But usually there's that wall. And when you personalize history with these stories then it has so much more impact."

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