David Schwimmer Opens Up About Devastating Impact Starring in Friends Had on His Life

​David Schwimmer has opened up about the devastating effect starring in one of the biggest TV shows of all time had on him.

David, as you all know, was one of the friends in, erm, Friends, alongside Jennifer Aniston, Matt Le Blanc, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox and Mathew Perry. But his time on the ridiculously successful sitcom took its toll on David – who played Ross Gellar – and he says he struggled with the fame it bought him.

David, 49, told Hollywood Reporter: "It was pretty jarring and 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.

"As an actor, the way I was trained, my job was to observe life and to observe other people, so I used to walk around with my head up, really engaged and watching people.

"The effect of celebrity was the absolute opposite: it made me want to hide under a baseball cap and not be seen.

"And I realised after a while that I was no longer watching people; I was trying to hide. So I was trying to figure out: How do I be an actor in this new world, in this new situation? How do I do my job? That was tricky."

Since starring in Friends, David has starred in a few movies, but is now mostly focusing on directing. 

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