Friends is undoubtedly one of the most successful shows of all time, and it catapulted the cast to super stardom following its debut in 1994. While this was obviously mostly a positive thing for all of them, David Schwimmer - who of course played Ross Gellar in the hit show - has spoken frankly about the incredibly negative effect it had on him.
In podcast with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor said;
"For me, personally, it was pretty jarring and it messed with my relationship to other people in a way that took years for me to adjust to and be comfortable with."
"I was 27 when the show hit so I had a pretty solid understanding of who I was and my relationship to the world and as an actor, the way I was trained, my job was to observe life and to observe other people and so I used to walk around with my head up and really engage and watch people and then 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.
"When people start coming up to you and grabbing you or wanting something from you. Now it’s even worse because it’s on camera […] it just changes how you relate to people."
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He said he was thankful he and his cast mates Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt Le Blanc, Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow all went through the experience together as although it was "thrilling, exciting and fun", it was also "really terrifying at times".
Schwimmer recently returned to TV for 'American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson', a role which has earned him an Emmy nomination. He also revealed in the interview that "the single most helpful thing" he did in preparing for that role was speaking "for hours" with Kardashian's widow, Kris Jenner, saying; "There were a couple of clues that she gave me," he says. "He [Kardashian] had a crisis of faith."
The actor is currently starring in another TV show alongside Jim Sturgess - a crime drama called Feed the Beast that has already premiered on AMC in America, so hopefully won't be too much longer until we get it over here.
And here's a nice photo of David Schwimmer, just to counter all of the incredibly grumpy ones above.
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