David Schwimmer's performance as Ross, a sensitive, hopeless romantic, on the worldwide hit comedy Friends has earned him an Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, and he garners popular and critical acclaim for his versatility onstage, in film and on television in a wide variety of roles.
Born in New York and raised in Los Angeles, Schwimmer was encouraged by a high school instructor to attend a summer program in acting at Northwestern University. Inspired by that experience, he returned to Northwestern, where he received a bachelor's degree in speech and theatre. In 1988, along with seven other Northwestern graduates, he co-founded Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company, an ensemble of actors, writers, directors and designers (now 20 members strong) dedicated to creating vibrant new works for the American stage.
Schwimmer recently adapted Studs Terkel's book Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession, which he directed as the premiere production for the company's new theatre on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Schwimmer has acted in or directed numerous productions with Lookingglass, including Of One Blood, West, The Odyssey, The Jungle, In the Eye of the Beholder, The Master and Margarita, The Arabian Nights and The Idiot. In addition, he starred in the premieres of Roger Kumble's D Girl and Turnaround in Los Angeles and Warren Leight's Glimmer Brothers in Williamstown.
Schwimmer's feature film credits include Hotel, It's the Rage, Picking Up the Pieces, Six Days Seven Nights, Apt Pupil, Kissing a Fool, The Pallbearer, Crossing the Bridge, the critically acclaimed HBO films Band of Brothers and Breast Men and Since You've Been Gone, which he also directed. He had recurring roles on such series as NYPD Blue, L.A. Law and The Wonder Years.
Schwimmer is on the board of directors of the Rape Treatment Center of Santa Monica and has residences in Los Angeles and Chicago. His birthday is November 2.
He previously starred alongside Bruce Willis in the hit comedy The Whole Nine Yards, and re-teamed with Willis in the sequel, The Whole Ten Yards. His other film credits include Serving Sara, opposite Elizabeth Hurley; Three to Tango, with Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott and Oliver Platt; Almost Heroes, with Chris Farley and Eugene Levy; Andy Tennant's Fools Rush In, opposite Salma Hayek; and A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, starring River Phoenix, which marked his first feature.
In May 2003, Schwimmer realized a long-held goal when he made his professional stage debut in London's West End in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, with Minnie Driver, Hank Azaria and Kelly Reilly. The production broke the record for the largest box office advance for a West End show.