David Schwimmer, who is best known for starring on the sitcom Friends, is speaking out to reveal the one film role that he turned down that he still appears to regret. He believes that had he taken the role, it would have changed the entire trajectory of his career.
Indeed, Schimmer thinks it may have made him a movie star like his Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston.
Schwimmer Regrets Turning Down Blockbuster
So what is the big role?
While appearing on the Origins with Cush Jumbo podcast, Schimmer revealed that he was offered a leading role in the 1997 movie Men in Black. This offer came in while Schwimmer was preparing to direct his first movie, the 1998 film Since You’ve Been Gone.
“So that was a brutal decision,” Schwimmer admitted.
Schwimmer said when he was offered Men In Black, he had just completed filming 1996’s The Pallbearer with Gwyneth Paltrow. This had been one of his first major roles outside of Friends, but it didn’t go so well.
Certainly not as well as Men In Black, which made nearly $600 million at the box office and spawned a franchise.
“There were high expectations of that, which didn’t come true,” Schwimmer said with a laugh. “It was kind of a bomb. But there were high expectations and the studio, which was Miramax, wanted to lock me into a three-picture deal at a fixed price and I said I would do that if I got to direct my first movie.”
“It was a direct conflict with — this was my summer window from Friends, I had a four-month hiatus, and Men in Black was going to shoot exactly when I was going to direct this film with my company,” he explained.
“Of course it was an amazing opportunity,” he acknowledged. “I mean, you have to follow your gut, you have to follow your heart. And look, I mean I’m really aware — whatever, 20 years later, maybe more — that would have made me…a movie star. If you look at the success of that film and that franchise, I would — my career might have taken a very different trajectory.”
Schwimmer Still Questions This Decision
Schwimmer still questions if he made the right choice to this day. However, he also believes that his theater friends never would have forgiven him if he abandoned Since You’ve Been Gone.
“My theater company and that relationship with all of those people would probably have ended. I don’t think it would have recovered,” he concluded. “I mean, those people had quit their jobs to do that movie.”
Schwimmer may never have become a huge movie star, but he’s still a working actor to this day. In the end, that’s a win in the crazy world of Hollywood!
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