‘Friends’ Made David Schwimmer A Straight-Up Recluse

Poor Ross sounds like he could use a friend!

David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller for a decade on the hit series “Friends,” recently opened up about the toll exacted by his most famous role.

“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,” Schwimmer said Monday on The Hollywood Reporter podcast “Awards Chatter.”

“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.”

But the actor told THR that his newfound fame “made me want to hide under a baseball cap and not be seen.” His overnight celebrity changed things, and he gradually became more reclusive. Part of that, Schwimmer explained, was because people found him approachable ― almost “part of the family” ― as a TV star.

“There’s less of a barrier than there is with, say, a big movie star — 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,” Schwimmer said. “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.”

(Not to point fingers, but doesn’t the “Friends” theme song tell us, “I’ll be there for you?”)

Honestly, we can’t imagine standing in Schwimmer’s shoes among the crowds of people he and the cast drew when they walked outside during the heyday of “Friends.” Hopefully, the millions the actor made from the show ― and the countless doors that it opened ― helped with his troubles.

To read the rest of Schwimmer’s interview with THR, head here.