Playboy's 20Q: David Schwimmer

A former NYPD Blue semiregular and now co-star of the wildly successful NBC comedy series Friends, David Schwimmer is making his way in films.

Born in Queens, Schwimmer enrolled in a high school drama class on a whim. Schwimmer's instructor encouraged him to attend Northwestern University in Illinois, where he received a degree in speech and theater. Schwimmer and seven other Northwestern graduates co-founded the Lookingglass Theater and have written, directed and performed original plays all over the world, including the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. The Lookingglass troupe also took roles in the film Since You've Been Gone, directed by and starring Schwimmer. Other Schwimmer film appearances include 6 Days 7 Nights opposite Harrison Ford and Anne Heche, Apt Pupil opposite Ian McKellen, The Pallbearer and Kissing a Fool. Schwimmer also starred in Breast Men for HBO.

Robert Crane caught up with Schwimmer at Du-par's, a 24-hour coffee shop in Los Angeles. Crane reports: "Schwimmer chose to meet at an off-hour and in an unhip locale. Despite his Friends celebrity and the big salary that goes with it, Schwimmer is lowkey. His stack of pancakes and cup of black coffee bore no traces of glamour."

1

[Q] Playboy: What are the hairstyle options for men with low hairlines?

[A] Schwimmer: The pompadour--you know, the big thick greasy look of the Fifties. If you want to, take a marker and draw in the widow's peak. Just make sure the tip doesn't go all the way to the eyebrows. I did that when I was a kid. I thought Dracula was really cool--you know, sexy, dark--and I wanted to be him every Halloween. I'm very lucky with this head of hair. I wash it every day and put whatever product I want in it. You can do just about anything. I had it down to the middle of my back in college, and I had a crew cut for pretty much the first year of Friends.

2

[Q] Playboy: Should the eyebrows touch or not?

[A] Schwimmer: They should definitely not touch. Wax, shave, pluck, do whatever you need to do. Women don't find the unibrow attractive.

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[Q] Playboy: You played a plastic surgeon in HBO's Breast Men--a film about breast augmentation. Does that procedure do a favor for a specific woman or does it do all women a disfavor?

[A] Schwimmer: So long as there is no health risk, then it's up to each woman to determine what it is she wants to do with her body. Some women may feel they're not as sexual or as womanly as they'd like to be, and if augmentation would help them overcome that, then they have every right to do what they want.

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[Q] Playboy: Break it down: What makes a good stage, TV and film actor.

[A] Schwimmer: It's a question of education. My first experience was acting for the stage, and then I gradually learned to act for TV cameras and I'm still learning how to act for film. They're very different. If you come from the stage it's hard to understand the camera and what can be achieved by doing less in film. It's actually a lot harder to go the other way, to be a film actor and then try to do a play. There are very few who can do it, because you really have to train your voice and body and have endurance as an actor to do a scene for more than two or three minutes. Often you're onstage for two or three hours without a break, which is my favorite thing. That's the biggest high there is. I've never understood actors who don't watch the movies they've completed. I watch the things I've done over and over because I feel that's the only way I'm going to improve as a film actor. Gary Sinise and John Malkovich are phenomenal in all three mediums.

5

[Q] Playboy: Discuss the tax problems of a successful show.

[A] Schwimmer: Look, $100,000 a week is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone. But consider how much the people who create the show and the studio and the network make. Our request that the six of us be paid equally, which we weren't in the beginning, was important to us. We'll be around as long as all of us are happy creatively and are still being challenged as actors, and as long as the writing stays as good as it has been and, of course, as long as the public wants to tune in.

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[Q] Playboy: If a pirated photo of you were to appear on the Internet, what would it show you doing?

[A] Schwimmer: I would hope to have a man's body. Someone once did a computer distortion of our faces, all six of us, that made us 60 years old and fat. I got a real kick out of that. But no, I haven't seen myself nude on the Internet yet.

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[Q] Playboy: Just so we can start looking, have you ever lost any photos or tapes?

[A] Schwimmer: Do you know something I don't know? You're getting me scared. I'm racking my brain--when I was 18 did I do some kind of video?

You know what's really interesting about that? I'd just graduated from college and had been seeing this girl for a year and a half. One day I was taking a shower and I had shampoo in my hair and eyes, and she whipped open the shower curtain and with an Instamatic took a couple (concluded on page 170)David Schwimmer(continued from page 139) of pictures of me, naked. Though we were happy together, something told me to dispose of the film, and I did. Eight years ago I was thinking, One day I want to be an actor. I don't want photos turning up.

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[Q] Playboy: When is it best not to have video mementos of one's love?

[A] Schwimmer: I think it's best not to videotape yourself steering a boat with your genitalia. If you want any serious consideration as an actor, that may hamper it, though in certain cases it may not. It may even elicit, more interest in you.

[Q] Playboy: What combination of the Friends cast would create a well-adjusted human being?

[A] Schwimmer: The toughest would be finding the best trait for myself. The others are easy: Matt Perry's sense of humor, Matt LeBlanc's big heart--I was going to say big heart for all of them. Courteney's old-fashioned common sense and honesty. Lisa's basic intelligence. Jennifer's generosity. And I guess my loyalty.

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[Q] Playboy: What plotlines will never be explored on Friends?

[A] Schwimmer: Three guys in the sack. The one in which Ross and Monica do the unspoken deed. The one in which Ross kills someone.

11

[Q] Playboy: We understand you're a poker player. Are you a good bluffer?

[A] Schwimmer: It's easier to bluff when you're playing with friends. You get to know who you can bluff and who you can't. Strangers are tougher. I've played only once in Vegas with strangers, and I don't think I was that great.

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[Q] Playboy: Give us some telltale signs of tells.

[A] Schwimmer: There's a guy I play with sometimes who suddenly gets incredibly serious. He doesn't laugh with everyone else when he's got the hand. He's very quiet, waiting for play. He thinks he's bluffing by not raising, thinking he's going to bag it at the end. But I know he's not bluffing, because he's quiet, he's not raising, and I fold unless I know I can take him down.

13

[Q] Playboy: If you needed quick cash, who would be at your poker table?

[A] Schwimmer: If I could get them, the girls on the show.

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[Q] Playboy: Your agent gives you a script about a schlub who has a series of erotic adventures with a lot of gorgeous women before finding his true love. Name the actresses you'd cast and the actress you'd wind up with. By the way, there's a lot of nudity in this film.

[A] Schwimmer: I'd probably have to encounter Helena Bonham-Carter, Audrey Heoburn, Sophia Loren, Shirley Mac-Laine. Winona Ryder, of course. I think at one time I would have said Holly Hunter. Maria Grazia Cucinotta, the actress from II Postino. And Maria Conchita Alonso. I would probably end up with her.

15

[Q] Playboy: In one episode of Friends, Rachel thinks Ross has suffered a premature ejaculation in a museum. Have you found most women to be as forgiving as she was?

[A] Schwimmer: I wouldn't know about that. I'm a lucky man.

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[Q] Playboy: You're in bed and see something for the first time you don't like. What do you do?

[A] Schwimmer: I remind her that I have to be up very early and excuse myself.

17

[Q] Playboy: Do Friends fuck friends?

[A] Schwimmer: You're not talking about the show, right? I've never crossed that line. I know right away if I'm physically attracted to someone. Rarely have I been good friends with someone and then at some later point found her suddenly physically attractive enough to sleep with her. So my answer is no. I guess I operate on a primitive kind of behavior -- I either want to grab on and not let go for quite a while, or it's just not there.

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[Q] Playboy: What sorts of scripts should your agent look out for?

[A] Schwimmer: Anything but black comedies or anything with a really low budget. I've done that. I don't have any interest in big broad comedy. I like more sophisticated comedies, character-driven movies, dramas, action movies, suspense. I'm up for anything. My agent of ten years knows pretty much what I like.

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[Q] Playboy: We understand the entertainment value of female bisexuality in films. Why do you suppose male bisexuality never caught on?

[A] Schwimmer: No clue. I've only watched heterosexual adult films. I don't understand guys who are bisexual--it's a mystery to me because I don't know any. I knew some guys who were straight once and are now homosexual, but I don't know any guys who are bi. To each his own, I guess. I can't imagine. All I can think of is watching a guy and a girl together and getting turned on, then suddenly another guy enters the room. Oh, OK, shut that off. Not even fast-forward. Switch to Letterman.

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[Q] Playboy: In the moments after sex, what should a man say?

[A] Schwimmer: Uncuff me.