David Schwimmer
David Schwimmer
David Lawrence Schwimmer is an American actor, director, producer and comedian. He was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 2. He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in theater and speech. After graduation, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company. For much of the late 1980s, he lived in Los Angeles as...
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth2 November 1966
CityAstoria, NY
David Schwimmer quotes about
I think it was really crucial that the actress was age appropriate. There are films, such as An Education, where that wasn't the case, and I think that really affects how you receive what you're watching.
At this age - I'm 44 - I think life's too short. I want it to mean something to me, if I'm going to spend that much time doing it.
I think I'm a very very nice director. Very supportive, very nurturing. I definitely try to challenge my actors but I think I'm very supportive.
With the success of the last three or so years, when a lot of people start treating you differently, there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say, 'Hey, wake up!
There are certain pressures and things that change your life to a degree that, in the cost benefit analysis that constantly goes on, sometimes makes you think, 'Maybe I should just leave.
I don't think I responded very well to the sudden celebrity, the sudden fame, and the loss of privacy.
I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there's so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work with some of those.
I think a huge amount of it is because of the Internet. Every single thing in the world is accessible with a few clicks. Almost every child, by the age of 13, has seen pornography. That's clearly different. It used to be really hard or really humiliating, as a 13-year-old, to access pornography. If you wanted to take a look at a Playboy, it was really challenging. Today, it's a joke.
I didn't want to be a victim of my own message [in Trust film]. I didn't want to take advantage of a 14-year-old actor. I didn't want there to be any nudity, or any real overt violence. I think it's more terrifying that there is no violence, in that moment. There's control and there's power, but there's no violence.
Sometimes I've felt that the industry has typecast me as a certain kind of character. But then I think all it really takes is one role, the right role, to shake that up and change that perception.
There are days when I think: what if I just checked out? What if I grew a beard and went off to live somewhere remote? I have often wondered about the freedom that would bring.
If there's something I want, I go for it. I just think about how I'm going to go for it.
I spend half my time just living my life, and the other half analyzing it.
I would say acting on stage is my first love.