David Lawrence Schwimmer (born November 2, 1966) is an American actor, director, and producer. He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Ross Geller in the sitcom Friends (1994–2004), for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1995. While on Friends, his first leading film role was in The Pallbearer (1996), followed by roles in Kissing a Fool, Six Days, Seven Nights, Apt Pupil (all 1998) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000). Schwimmer was also in the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) as Herbert Sobel. Schwimmer began his acting career performing in school plays at Immanuel College Prep, Bushey England and then Beverly Hills High School. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in theater and speech. After graduation, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. He later moved back to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career, debuting in the television film A Deadly Silence in 1989 and appeared in a number of television roles in the early 1990s, including L.A. Law, The Wonder Years, NYPD Blue, and Monty. After the series finale of Friends in 2004, Schwimmer branched out into film and stage work. He was cast as the title character in the 2005 drama film Duane Hopwood, and voiced Melman the giraffe in the animated Madagascar film franchise, acted in the dark comedy Big Nothing (2006), and the thriller Nothing but the Truth (2008). Schwimmer made his West End stage debut in the leading role in 2005's Some Girl(s). He made his Broadway debut in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial in 2006. His feature film directorial debut followed in 2007 with the comedy Run Fatboy Run, and the following year he made his Off-Broadway directorial debut in Fault Lines. He has also worked as a director, including many episodes of Friends during his time on the series. In 2016, Schwimmer starred as lawyer Robert Kardashian in The People v. O. J. Simpson, for which he received his second Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2025, he starred as botany professor Anthony Brewer in the second season of supernatural horror anthology series Goosebumps: The Vanishing, earning a Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Performer nomination.