• Faith: Judaism
• Career: Actor
• Birthday:  November 02, 1966

David Schwimmer is a director, actor, producer and comedian. He gained worldwide recognition for playing Ross Geller on "Friends," 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 still acting in "Friends," his first leading role was in "The Pallbearer," followed by roles in "Kissing a Fool,” "Six Days, Seven Nights,” "Apt Pupil," and "Picking Up the Pieces." He was also cast in the miniseries "Band of Brothers" as Herbert Sobel. Schwimmer started his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in speech and theater.

After graduation, he co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company. For much of the late 1980s, Schwimmer lived in Los Angeles as an unemployed, struggling actor until he starred in "A Deadly Silence" in 1989 and appeared in several TV roles until the early 1990s, including "The Wonder Years,” "L.A. Law,” "Monty," and "NYPD Blue." After "Friends" ended in 2004, Schwimmer branched out into stage work and film. He was cast as the title character in "Duane Hopwood" and voiced Melman the Giraffe in the "Madagascar" film franchise. He also acted in "Big Nothing" and "Nothing but the Truth." Schwimmer made his West End stage debut in "Some Girl(s)." In 2006, he made his Broadway debut in "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial." His featured film directorial debut came in 2007 with "Run Fatboy, Run," and the following year, he made his off-Broadway directional debut in "Fault Lines."

Schwimmer also worked as a director, including several episodes of "Friends" during his time on the show. In 2016, he starred as lawyer Robert Kardashian in "The People v. O.J. Simpson," for which he received another Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Schwimmer was born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, in 1966 to Arthur and Arlene Schwimmer. He has one older sister, Monica Ellie. His family eventually moved to Los Angeles, where, at 10 years old, Schwimmer had his first acting experience when he was cast as the fairy godmother in a Jewish version of "Cinderella. In 1979, he went to a Shakespeare workshop given by Sir Ian McKellen in Los Angeles. He recalls being riveted by the experience. Then, Schwimmer entered a contest in the Southern California Shakespeare Festival three years in a row, winning two first prizes.

What religion is David Schwimmer?

David Schwimmer identifies as Jewish. He was featured in "Jews Don't Count," a 2022 documentary by David Baddiel on the subject of antisemitism. Schwimmer's contribution, in which he said he's never felt white, was described as "erudite" by Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian. In the documentary, Schwimmer noted how civil rights activists Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were Jewish, and James Chaney, a Black man, were killed by the KKK in Mississippi in 1964, two years before he was born. He often thought about the case because he had a last name similar to Schwerner's. He said, "The fact that in my own country, just a couple of states away, just being Jewish, even though I wasn't religious, my life was at risk. For me, I never felt white because, for me, white means safe."