YouSaid · the spoken record

David Schwimmer

lines on the record: 44
first: 2023-04-08
most recent: 2023-04-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So, what I've done here is assimilate all the data from the program along with Tuba's trace matches and combine that with an algorithm that basically mimics my own gut instincts. Anyway, taking all of that into account, these are our top six suspects. My money is on Abdullah”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Were moments that I thought were impactful and memorable, but listen, it's a challenge for the writers too, because you're on a network show and there were certain things and certain agendas and frankly a lot of limitations that you know about what you can do, what you can say, what you can talk about, what you can show. Luckily those have gotten better rather than, well, I have to say, certain areas have gotten better and are getting better in terms of representation of people of color and gender and sexual orientation. But it's interesting to me that you still can't say a lot of stuff, language, on network television, at least, not streamers, but on network television. Language is still very, very tightly monitored and religion. Really joke about religion and certain things. So I think that's interesting”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Represent their religion, which is a big thing that, you know, Ross and Monica were Jewish. And it was very rarely kind of dealt with, but luckily, when we could raise it, it was dealt in a very memorable way, whether during the blackout, Joey would, I think it was that episode, he would use the menorah, which he didn't even understand what it was, but he was using it to like with candles because we had no power or the holiday armadillo, which Ross wanted his son to understand that the idea of Santa Claus is so iconic and so proliferates our entire culture that he wanted his son to have kind of a Jewish hero or a Jewish icon.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, I was very aware of it on the show that there were a lot of things I was aware of, and one of them was that it wasn't really truly representative of New York and the entire incredible diversity of this city that I live in and love. And I think I've already made this known, but Rachel and Ross, when they were dating other people, when the focus wasn't on her, I really made it known that I want Ross to date women of color. So there were several conversations and then auditions and thinking finally he had a relationship. Tyler was a woman, African-American woman that Ross dated, had a relationship with. But it was always on my mind, again, the way I was raised, but also to”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I love the one, God, I can't remember the title of it. It might be the one with the jellyfish. I'm not sure, but the one where Rachel and Ross first kiss, I thought that was a very strong episode. I also like when the one with the, I don't remember what it's called, the episode, but the one where they got back together, but Ross didn't read Rachel's letter because it was 18 pages front and back, and he fell asleep reading it. but was caught and it explodes and they have a fight basically. The famous kind of we were on a break episode.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. I mean, I have favorite episodes, favorite moments, if that's what you're asking. But what you were saying about the global reach of it, yeah, it's really moving to me and really meaningful to know. And I've been approached by a lot of young people from all over the world who say, I learned English watching your show, or that it's empowered a lot of women in different countries to just have the idea as Monica proposed. Struggling with their gender and their sexual orientation, it's given them more perspective and kind of given them the idea that they can own who they are, which hearing that from a lot of young people is really incredible to think that we were just trying to make people laugh and then to know that it's had that effect is really a credit to the writing more than anything.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Does it does and the American arrogance, which exists, you know, the idea that many folks in America are like America first without ever having been out of the country? At least my character represents a kind of American patriotic ignorance and naivete.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sorry, I still get PTSD from my time in Afghanistan. You never served in Afghanistan? No, I know, but the drone footage I saw was very realistic. How much data was compromised? Yeah, Macy Odson Sods really metadata from the MIL server. They did manage to capture a tiny bit of Mary's internet browsing history, sadly. Oh, damn. Please”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That in some cases it's not too offensive, but we also have the luxury of doing multiple takes and alternate takes. So we can decide certain things we can decide in the edit.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, change is on the spot because the audience maybe wouldn't get the joke as much as it wouldn't land. So we'd have to come up with something on the spot. But throughout the week, I'd be pitching, and the other actors would be pitching other jokes, other moments, other beats, and also work it out dramatically, saying, this isn't feeling right. It's not landing in a way. So we'd have a whole week of rehearsal to figure it out. And then the true kind of the arbiter would be the audience. You know, they would say whether they liked it or not, or something landed with them emotionally or not. With Nick, when Nick and I, it's the same spirit of real collaboration, but we don't have the luxury of an audience. We have to be the arbiters along with our wonderful producers and director Matt to really figure out and trust that this works, that it's funny.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm describing a certain relationship between the writer and or writers and actor in which there's a mutual respect and trust that I can elevate the material and I can take what the ideas, the great ideas that they have and take it to the next level. If you trust me and let me own it in a way and inhabit because I know the character and I might make choices that will surprise you. And when there's that mutual respect and trust, as Nick and I have as well, it's better than either of you could have come up on your own. You know, that's what it is. You find a working relationship that elevates the material or elevates your performance because they can see something you can't and they can write to you and your character. I mean, obviously there are two very different shows because we had the pressure, you know, we would rehearse a one act play every week and then we would perform it in front of a live audience and there were.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You came in for us a year ago, and I was like, This sounds too good to be true. And it was. It was too good to be true. They kept their word. It was collaborative from beginning to end. It was as much fun as I'm having with Nick on intelligence because of the collaboration. That's what gets me going is that collaborative spirit.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I was convinced to meet with Marna, David, and Kevin, what they told me was that, and what I didn't realize was that a year before friends got picked up as a pilot, I mean, to make the pilot, I had auditioned for them. I went to network for them on another show they wrote. And I was down to me and two other guys, one of whom was my good friend from high school, Johnny Silverman. And he got the role. I didn't get cast, but they remembered They remembered my voice and my, I guess, my interpretation of that character. And they wrote Ross with me in mind. So I didn't know any of this until I flew out to LA to meet with them. They said, listen, it's an ensemble show. There's no star. We promise to be collaborative. We want to hear your ideas, your thoughts. We wrote this with you in mind because of your audition.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was Yeah, it's not that I didn't like sitcoms. I've always loved sitcoms. I'm a huge fan of television comedy. It was just that the experience as an actor on that was so, I just didn't want to do it again and feel trapped or signed for, you know, that someone owned me for five years. I just didn't like that feeling.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It worked. And that combined with frankly the experience that the six of us were going through, that the only other people could possibly understand the emotional roller coaster and the terror of sudden celebrity and all that, the only other people that understood really what you were going through were those other five people. So those things helped solidify after year one a very, very tight bond.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My agent was now's the time you go and renegotiate for more money. You know, this is your moment. I was like, well, I didn't like the idea being who I was and how I was raised of coming to work and making more than the other. How about we all go in together and I'll take less so everyone can come up and we'll all be making the same and we just agree now. Every decision we make will make together as a union, as a group, and everyone will always make the same amount of money on this show. So no one will ever resent the other actors. Matthew Perry said to me, okay.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because she's my ex wife that will probably want to bring her lesbian life partner. We were all equal stars, but I was aware, my agent made me aware that I was the breakout and I could go back and was being encouraged by my agent to renegotiate for more money.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I unionized the caste. I mean, very simply, we were six actors who had not known each other before the show started. We were all making very different salaries in the first year of friends for whatever reason. And we've all had our shining moment as actors on that show. For whatever reason, the first year I was kind of the breakout”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We made 12 episodes, only a few of which were aired, but we made 12, so I got to bank some money. And I said, I'm out of here. I moved back to Chicago. And I say, I got money in my bank. I'm going back to Chicago and doing theater. Forget TV. I'm not going to sign up for another six, you know, five or six years and risk being in that situation where I was so unhappy and uninspired and appreciated. I was doing theater in Chicago. I was on stage doing a play with my company when, you know, the offer came in to do friends.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The show was not good, and although he was terrific and everyone on there was lovely, but more importantly, the writers did not embrace my ideas. They didn't make me feel like my ideas were welcome. I felt I was basically kind of told, just say the line. Just do what we say. And I felt kind of like a prop. And it was, you know, I guess that experience really turned me off to television because I felt in that time trapped, you know, when in those situations, you had to sign for five, now it's six years. You have to sign six years. So they own you. And it does feel like you're, you know, you're owned by the network or whoever. And I was so relieved when that show was canceled after filming 12 episodes. And luckily,”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I had been lucky enough to be cast in my first regular series role, which is a big deal for a young actor. A year before friends, right? It was a show with this incredible actor, Henry Winkler, who I love and adore. And I was playing his son in this sitcom. Gina's been teaching me vegetarian cooking. And I really enjoy it. It's utilitarian in a Thoroughian sense. What was that You know Thoroian were about Thoreau used in a sentence you Thoreauian like a girl”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exploitation really of workers and the corrupt system. And it's really also the story of the rise of unions in this country. There was a social justice component to that. And then a lot of the work, actually, I was involved in starting that company were stories that had some kind of message, you know, but hopefully told in a very theatrical and entertaining way as well. They had to be good, but there was always an agenda.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A big epic dramatic production about the Chicago, the story of immigration, really, it's the story of immigrants landed in Chicago from Lithuania.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel like that was 1990, maybe two years after I graduated. Yeah, that was one of our big productions. I had adapted this book, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair and directed it. And our entire company on stage and then some.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Works work there were a couple of things that followed each other rather quickly in terms of some recurring roles, but I kind of look back on NYPD Blue as this, which was a dramatic story and a dramatic character as my break, really. Although like Nick, I don't think we're going to wait for that. We both kind of were starting to take control of our own careers. He is a writer and performer and me as starting a theater company as directing and acting. I don't think we were going to just hang around and wait for someone to hopefully find us. We were going to get after it, you know.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, actually I consider, I guess my break into on-camera work was more dramatic. I was doing some guest episodes on a show called LA Law and then NYPD Blue was a four episode arc. Where my character was inspired by this real story in New York, a subway vigilante, a guy who took justice into his own hands. And then the wonder years. So, Mr. Arnold, how are things that... Nor North Corp, North Fleet, North. That's where you work, right? How are things there?”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that experience of producing, traveling to that festival, seeing all that theater from all over the world and all over, particularly all over the UK, the comedy, seeing everything, and producing it successfully, like again was one of those formative events that told me, oh, just keep doing what you're doing.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I produced a shortened version, like benefit performance to send us to Scotland. And sure enough, we raised five grand and he kept his word. And that summer we were in Edinburgh Fringe Festival where I got to see Stephen Burkhoff's play West the first time it was produced. And that play blew my mind and I then spent the next 10 years trying to produce that in Chicago with my company, which he finally granted us the rights to do”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, if you raise half of it, I'll match it. Was like done. And so I got in touch with Second City and they gave me their space for free and I produced”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just hated his work. I just thought he was trash. So I thought this is completely illogical. Why do I have to take direction? And I just produced it off campus. It became a really big hit and kind of like the hot thing to see off campus. And it was successful on top of that. And I produced it as well as directed it and I made money. And I was like, okay. So I being pretty, as we've established, arrogant and big-headed, I went to the dean of the School of Speech and I said, hey, you know, I just produced this play off campus. I've heard about this international theater festival in Scotland called the Edinburgh Festival. And I think you should send me and the cast to Edinburgh, to the festival to represent Northwestern and the city of Chicago. I was 20 years old. I don't know what. But to his credit, he said to me, how much does it cost? And I'd done the budget. It was $10,000.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So at Northwestern, I had always directed, even in high school, I was directing. And when I got to Northwestern, I really wanted to direct this one very physical production, again, kind of based in Grotowski, but this adult version of Alice in Wonderland in which six actors transform themselves and played every character in the two books, Alison Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, with only one actress playing Alice the entire time. It's kind of a grown-up, sophisticated version of the adaptation of the two books combined, and it was first done by Andre Gregory and the Manhattan Project in, I think the 70s. But I really wanted to do this and direct it at Northwestern, but I was told I hadn't taken the requisite directing course with this one director.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I kind of develop my own process. It really is for me. Specific, quite choreographed. And because in order to do it over and over again, you want to not be hurt every time you do it. To but you have to sell it as Nick knows, you have to sell it in a way whether it's stage combat, the same thing. No one ever wants to actually get hurt.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A combination of the degree at Northwestern and the training there, but also since I was 13 years old, every opportunity I had to take extracurricular theater and summer camp and training I took. So whether it's clown school or I went to the British America Drama Academy at Oxford where Cox and Rosemary Harris were two of my teachers. So I always fascinated with physical comedy. Of the training and the dance and the movement that really Hand in hand with it. So I tried to train everything and just acquire as many skills as I could. Stage combat, everything Northwestern really provided a really strong foundation there, as well as these other supplement”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Complete waste of time, I think, just because if you want to go to the theatre, go to the theatre, if you want to go to the cinema, go to the cinema, don't do both. To be honest, you got a challenge to go to the cinema because it's better. Let's go around and say the first word that comes into our heads. Disease about the play.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, very, very physical theater method and philosophy. And that was hugely formative in terms of then bringing that to Northwestern and introducing a different kind of style and process that would eventually lead to a formation of a whole theater company later.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're seeing again in front of all the schools on the mainstage. I think doing that at age like 14 was hugely formative because it was just this big thing of approval. It was like you hope you're good, but when you win something like that, you feel like, oh, okay, I should maybe keep doing this because others are enjoying it.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nick knows about anything. I'm intensely competitive. And I love games and sports and all that stuff. So anyway, there was this Shakespeare Festival in Southern California of all the high schools in Southern California would compete against each other in two categories, an individual category where you would represent your school or a scene, a group category of like four or five actors doing scenes from anyway. I cut together my own individual tempest where I played Prospero, Ariel, and Kyleban, and I did this really physical thing that Nick would probably be genius at. But transforming yourself at different levels, Caliban on the ground, Ariel above, and Prospero, you know, whatever. And I ended up winning first place in the competition and the greatest moment of that that I didn't know until you won was you get to repeat and do.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I was very lucky in the high school I went to, they had a really strong theater program and I was introduced to Shakespeare at a young age, you know, seeing Ian McKellen and my parents were big fans of Shakespeare. And so there was this competition. And I'm very competitive naturally.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Shapes. I was absolutely awestruck and I thought I have to do that magic trick. I have to learn how to do that. So yeah, I was really bitten by the bug quite early.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, my parents had a love of theater, and every year we would, on one of our, or both our trips back east to see family, we would make a point to see as many plays and shows as possible. You know, I remember a couple of trips, we would see like five shows within a six-day trip. I was always going to theater, but my parents took me to see Ian McKellen's one-man acting Shakespeare in Westwood, in like one of the UCLA small theaters in Westwood. I was 13 years old and I was completely mesmerized. And it was, you know, Nick talks about magic. I also was a fan of magic growing up as a kid. The magic that Ian McKellen, like the magic trick that he did of transforming himself without any props or costume changes into 25 of the greatest Shakespeare roles written, men, women of different size.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, still is. It was really formative growing up. My parents were activists and progressives and a lot of early memories on picket lines with them and seeing feminist theater that my mom was in. Was thinking about this recently in a conversation with a friend of mine, but I was born just two years after the murder of these three civil rights workers, Schwerner Cheney and Goodman, two of whom were young New York Jews, looked a lot like me, and they were my parents' age, you know, when I was born. So I grew up in this very, very hyper awareness, not just of the Holocaust, but of the very present reality of being Jewish in America and antisemitism and that when you grow up with that kind of awareness that you are other and that your life is literally at stake or in jeopardy in different parts of your own country, in your own backyard, I think it informs your worldview in a huge way. So that idea of seeing any kind of injustice with any”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, born in Queens, New York. When I was about two years old, my parents who were Native New Yorkers, born and raised, Brooklyn in Queens, they had the courage to follow their hearts and leave all of their very close family, their parents, their aunts and uncles, all my grandparents, my great-aunts and uncles, and my aunts and uncles. We left everyone and moved to Los Angeles where they were pursuing opportunities as young lawyers. Luckily, I would go back many times around twice a year, if at least, to see all those relatives who played a big part in our lives growing up.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Minnie David was, I think, a really happy kid. I was really close to my older sister, Ellie. We were just about a little over a year apart. My parents were both working lawyers, but very present parents. And I would describe myself as very happy, very hyperactive, very physical, what they would probably diagnose me with ADD today, but I was uncontrollable energy and enthusiasm, I guess. So, yeah, I would say in a nutshell that was many, many David.”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I said, listen. Advice to go and renegotiate for more money, how about We all go in together. I'll take less so everyone can”
2023-04-08 · Intelligence Squared · Growing Up with David Schwimmer and Nick Mohammed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT