David Lawrence Schwimmer born November 2 1966 is an American actor and director of television and film He was born in New York and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School In 1988 he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater and speech After graduation Schwimmer cofounded the Lookingglass Theatre Company For much of the late1980s he lived in Los Angeles as a struggling unemployed actor He appeared in the television movie A Deadly Silence in 1989 He then appeared in a number of television roles including LA Law The Wonder Years NYPD Blue and Monty in the early 1990s Schwimmer later gained worldwide recognition for playing Ross Geller in the situation comedy Friends Aside from appearing in television he starred in his first leading role in The Pallbearer 1996 which was followed by roles in Kissing a Fool 1998 Six Days Seven Nights 1998 Apt Pupil and Picking Up the Pieces 2000 He was then cast in the miniseries Band of Brothers 2001 as Herbert Sobel Following the series finale of Friends in 2004 Schwimmer was cast as the titular character in the 2005 drama Duane Hopwood Other film roles include the computer animated film Madagascar 2005 the dark comedy Big Nothing 2006 the thriller Nothing But the Truth 2008 and Madagascar Escape 2 Africa 2008 Schwimmer made his London stage debut in the leading role in Some Girls in 2005 In 2006 he made his Broadway debut in The Caine Mutiny CourtMartial Schwimmer made his feature film directorial debut with the 2007 comedy Run Fatboy Run The following year he made his OffBroadway directorial debut in the 2008 production Fault Lines Description above from the Wikipedia article David Schwimmer licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia