Friends: When ‘Ross’ David Schwimmer Revealed The Dark Side Of Playing His Character On-Screen & How It Impacted His Life, “It Messed With My Relationship…”
David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller on Friends, once revealed how starring in the show impacted his life. Read on!
When Friends Star David Schwimmer Revealed The Dark Side Of Playing Ross Geller ( Photo Credit – IMDb )
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It is safe to say that Friends is among the most beloved and iconic American sitcoms. The show was shot to fame immediately with its first season, making its cast members celebrities overnight. The show saw a group of six friends who try to do life in New York City while helping out each other and being one another’s family. Although any actor would have been glad to be a part of the 10-seasons-long hit show, for ‘Ross Geller’ David Schwimmer, it was a dark experience.
Friends began in 1994 with its cast members: Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani and David Schwimmer as Ross Geller.
Soon after the first season of the show aired, the six cast members were shot to massive fame. They played their respective characters for 10 seasons, and to date, fans know them for the roles they essayed. But, the instant popularity was not a treat for David Schwimmer as he soon realised he could not engage with the world.
Once, during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, David Schwimmer said starring in Friends was “pretty jarring.” He continued, “It messed with my relationship to other people in a way that took years, I think, for me to adjust to and become comfortable with.” The actor added how he could not talk to people like a normal person anymore and said, “The effect of celebrity was the absolute opposite: It made me want to hide under a baseball cap and not be seen.” “I realized after a while that I was no longer watching people. I was trying to hide.”
It seems that Schwimmer was also concerned about his acting career and being typecast for playing the same character for a decade. He said, “There’s less of a barrier with, say, a big movie star.” He continued to compare his work to a movie star and said, “You see them in this other kind of a space with a lot of other people on a big screen, and you see that their role changes in every movie, for the most part. They’re very different people in very different situations—whereas in our show I’m the same guy for 10 years. You can rely on me to be a certain way, and you know me—or you think you know me.”
For the unversed, the producers of Friends once revealed that Schwimmer was the first one to be cast as writers wrote Ross Geller keeping the actor in mind. Apart from shows and movies, David has also given his voice to some of the iconic characters in the Madagascar animated film series.
