American actor, director, activist, and producer David Lawrence Schwimmer is from Queens. Schwimmer started out as an actor by taking part in plays at Beverly Hills High School.
In 1989, he was in the TV movie “A Deadly Silence.” In the early 1990s, he was in a number of TV shows, such as “L.A. Law,” “The Wonder Years,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Monty.” The show “Friends” made him famous all over the world.
David Schwimmer: Net Worth 2022
American actor, director, and producer David Schwimmer has a net worth of $120 million as of 2022. David Schwimmer is best known for his role as Ross Geller in the hugely popular sitcom Friends. However, he has shown himself to be a versatile actor by taking on roles on stage, in movies, and as a voice actor.
David Schwimmer: Early Life Details
David Lawrence Schwimmer was born on November 2nd of 1966 in Flushing, Queens, New York City. Raised in a Jewish household alongside an older sister by parents who were both attorneys, David’s family soon relocated to Los Angeles. Once there, David became enamored with acting and developed a passion for Shakespeare.
David’s family eventually relocated to Beverly Hills, where he attended high school. Schwimmer felt like an outsider during his high school years and planned to become a doctor after excelling in math and science. However, his passion for acting never went away, and David continued to enroll in drama classes and summer acting programs.
David Schwimmer: Personal Life Details
In 2010, David Schwimmer married Zoe Buckman. They had a child together the next year. After being apart for a while, the couple split up in 2017.
David Schwimmer: Career Details
Schwimmer’s career began in the late 1980s when he tried out for a number of roles. He got a small part in the TV show “A Deadly Silence” and then went on to star in movies like “Flight of the Intruder.”
In 1994, he landed one of his first big roles in the TV show “Monty.” People liked him because he was like a liberal son of a conservative father. Agents and producers in Ace Hollywood finally started to notice him.
He made a big step forward in his career when he got the role of “Dr. Ross Geller” in the TV show “Friends.” The show was about six American young people in their 20s going about their daily lives, looking for love, and getting into another mischief.
In 2004, “Friends” ended after 10 seasons, and David moved on to other things. In 2005, he was in an independent movie called “Duane Hopwood,” which got mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike.
With the 2007 British comedy film “Run Fatboy Run,” starring Simon Pegg, he became a full-time director. David was nominated for “Best Debut Director” at the “British Independent Film Awards” because of the movie.
In the 2016 season of “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” he played “Robert Kardashian.” He was one of the main characters in the TV show “Feed the Beast” in the same year.
David Schwimmer: David Schwimmer Friends Salaries and Royalties
For the first season of Friends, each cast member made $22,500 per episode. For the first season, that adds up to $540,000. In the second season, their pay went up to $40,000 per episode, which is the same as $960,000 per year.
Before their contracts ran out at the start of the third season, the main cast decided to work together to renegotiate their new deals. After a successful round of talks, the studio agreed to pay each main cast member $75,000 per episode during season three. This is the same as making $1,875,000 per year.
This new contract also said that the pay would go up as the seasons went on. In season four, the main cast of Friends made $85,000 per episode or $2.04 million per year. In season five, they made $100,000 per episode or $2.5 million per year, and in season six, they made $125,000 per episode or $3.125 million per year.
But that group of people wasn’t done yet. Before season seven started, the cast went back to the table to talk about more demands. Because the cast stuck together and fought as one, the studio had no choice but to give them what they wanted: $750,000 per episode in seasons seven and eight, which is equal to $18 million per season.
For seasons nine and ten, this crazy-rich new contract also set a price of $1 million per episode. Friends’ main cast made a total of $24 million for season nine and $18 million for season ten. David Schwimmer and the rest of the main cast made a total of about $90 million from the show, and that’s just from their base salaries. That’s before bonuses and royalties were added in.
David Schwimmer: Real Estate
David Schwimmer bought a loft in Chicago for $425,000 in 1998. Schwimmer put the condo on the market at a price of $1.15 million at first, but he later lowered the price and sold it for $965,000 in 2020.
In 2001, Schwimmer paid $5.6 million for a huge mansion in Los Angeles’s Hancock Park, which is a very nice area. The house is 11,336 square feet and has nine bedrooms, five fireplaces, and a library with wood walls. There are tennis courts and a swimming pool outside. In 2011, David Schwimmer put the mansion on the market for $10.7 million. In the end, he lowered the price and sold the house in 2012 for just under $8.9 million.
Schwimmer moved to New York City full-time in 2010 when he bought a townhouse in the East Village for $3.9 million. Schwimmer then used a limited liability company to change the property. He tore down the historic house in 1852 and built a five-story brick townhouse in its place.
Favorite Quotes from David Schwimmer
“My parents from a very young age raised my sister and I under a pressure to achieve. They’re both attorneys. So good marks, getting through university, there was a huge emphasis and pressure to do well and keep going.”
“When I was six years old, my parents took me to this farmers market with a petting zoo. They put me on a pony and, for some reason, it took off at a run and they had to chase it down. They tell me it was kind of traumatic.”
“I think I’m a very very nice director. Very supportive, very nurturing. I definitely try to challenge my actors but I think I’m very supportive.”
“I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there are so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work with some of those.”
“If I were given a choice between two films and one was dark and explored depraved, troubled or sick aspects of our culture, I would always opt for that over the next romantic comedy.”