David Schwimmer has appeared in some unforgettable projects over the years, but there was one film role that he admitted could have made him an even bigger name. In the mid-1990s, the Friends star was offered to star in the new sci-fi action comedy Men in Black, but he ended up passing on the role—a move he questions to this day.
It wasn't Schwimmer's Friends filming schedule that got in the way, however. In a Sept. 16 interview on the Origins with Cush Jumbo podcast, he explained what his career looked like at the time and just how he navigated the industry in his early years on screen.
"[It] was a brutal decision. I had just finished filming The Pallbearer, my first film with Gwyneth Paltrow, and there were high expectations of that which didn’t come true," he said. "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. So after months of negotiations, they finally said that I would act in three more movies for them but I got to direct my entire theater company in the first film. All these unknown actors but I was going to put them on the map, basically. I was going to let everyone discover the talent of this amazing company."
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At first, the opportunity to lead a group of burgeoning actors was a dream come true for Schwimmer.
"We found this amazing script and we were developing it. We started pre-production. All my best friends in the world in my theater company quit their jobs so they could be in this film over the summer, which was going to be a six-week shoot in Chicago," he said. That's when the MIB call came.
"We’re in pre-production, hired the whole crew, everything’s going and that’s when I was offered Men in Black. It was a direct conflict with this. My summer window from Friends was four months. 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 recounted. "Of course, it was an amazing opportunity." Ultimately, however, he didn't want to leave these hardworking people behind.
"You have to follow your gut. You have to follow your heart," he said. "Look, I’m really aware, whatever 20 years later, maybe more, [Men in Black] would have made me a movie star. If you look at the success of that film and that franchise, my career would have taken a very different trajectory."
"However, my theater company and that relationship with all those people would probably have ended," he concluded. "I don't know if it would have recovered. I don't think it would have recovered. I mean, those people had quit their jobs to do that movie. So... I don't know if I made the right choice."
The starring role in Men in Black ultimately went to Will Smith, though the Oscar winner famously also almost turned down the role. Schwimmer went on to become a household name thanks to the success of Friends and future roles like lawyer Robert Kardashian in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/kG8wyfq
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