Friends star David Schwimmer admits ‘there was not enough representation on the show’

Actor David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller on the hit sitcom Friends, has said that in hindsight, he feels the show should have had a more racially diverse cast. Friends, which ran for 10 successful seasons on NBC, was often criticised for featuring an all-white central cast, despite being set in New York City.

“I really felt like Ross should date other people, women of all races,” the actor told Entertainment Tonight. “It just felt wrong that there was not enough representation on the show.”

Schwimmer did, however, say that the show was very progressive in terms of its depiction of gay relationships at a time when it wasn’t common on television. “It was doing some incredible things,” Schwimmer said. “If you remember the pilot, my character was losing his wife to a woman. The way they portrayed gay marriage and how we as a family made it work, I thought was great.”

Schwimmer, along with the rest of the main cast including Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry, will return for a special unscripted reunion episode for HBO Max. The filming of the special has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. “I can tell you that we are hoping to shoot [the reunion] in August, in mid-August, but honestly, we will do it when it’s safe,” the actor said, adding that it is important to film the episode in front of a live audience. “There has always been a hope that a component of that reunion show will have a live audience, which makes the whole thing really tricky. We are obviously not going to risk anyone’s health by doing this,” he said.

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