Matthew Perry gave Lisa Kudrow the cookie time jar from Friends

Perry gave her the jar as a memento of their time working together

Lisa Kudrow reveals that Matthew Perry stole the cookie time jar for her from the Friends set.

Lisa Kudrow has revealed that her Friends co-star Matthew Perry gave her the priceless cookie jar from the series as a gift.

Kudrow, who plays Phoebe Buffay on the NBC series, told Jimmy Kimmel that Perry gave her the cookie jar prop from Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica Geller's (Courtney Cox) apartment.

The 56-year-old told Kimmel: “We're shooting a scene, years before we were finished, and my line was, ‘Oh! I better get going,’ like, ‘Oh! I'm late, I better get going’.”

Kudrow was not wearing a watch during the scene and mistook the cookie jar for a clock.

“As the words were coming out, I went, ‘Oh, good, there's a clock,’” Kudrow said. “I gestured to that, and said, 'Oh! Look at the time. I gotta get going’.“

“And during shooting, Matthew said, ‘Did you look at the cookie jar and say look at the time?’”

After the series finale in 2004, Kudrow said Perry, who played Chandler Bing on the comedy, gave her the jar as a memento of their time working together.

“I think the first thing I asked was, ‘This was so nice - did you get permission?’” Kudrow said. “I mean, my car used to get searched every night when I left.”

Earlier this month, Kudrow defended Friends amid criticism that the show has aged badly.

In recent years, the show has been accused of having ”problematic“ storylines, with younger viewers describing it as transphobic, homophobic and sexist, and lamenting the lack of non-white characters.

The cookie jar Friends star Matthew Perry stole for Lisa Kudrow can be seen in Monica and Rachel's apartment. (HBO)

Speaking about what Friends would be like if it aired today, Kudrow told The Sunday Times: “Oh, it’d be completely different. It would not be an all-white cast, for sure. I’m not sure what else, but, to me, it should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong.”

She continued: “Also, this show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together? We had surrogacy, too. It was, at the time, progressive.”