DAVID SCHWIMMER

There are certain pressures and things that change your life to a degree that, in the cost benefit analysis that constantly goes on, sometimes makes you think, 'Maybe I should just leave.'

I'm fiercely loyal to my friends, and I really cherish my friendships.

I think I'm a very very nice director. Very supportive, very nurturing. I definitely try to challenge my actors but I think I'm very supportive.

I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there's so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work with some of those.

I find America falling in love with a TV show flattering and interesting, but at the same time a little sad.

I spend half my time just living my life, and the other half analyzing it.

It's really important to me not to be known as Ross when I'm 60.

I came from a family where I felt great pressure to be financially successful, and I felt that staying in Chicago and doing theater, I was, in all likelihood, not going to find financial success.

Directing is something I always wanted to do. I started when I was 13 directing scenes in high school and then plays in college with my theatre company.

My parents from a very young age raised my sister and I under a pressure to achieve. They're both attorneys. So good marks, getting through university, there was a huge emphasis and pressure to do well and keep going.

I like to grow as an actor, and you can do that by playing parts that are unfamiliar to you and uncomfortable.

I love directing. It's something I started doing in theatre when I was in university in Chicago and I started a theatre company right out of college and was directing for many years.

I was a geek in high school.

With the success of the last three or so years, when a lot of people start treating you differently, there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say, 'Hey, wake up!'

You're only as good as the sum of your parts, and one person can't be a team.

London is completely unpredictable when it comes to weather. You'll start a scene, and it's a beautiful morning. You get there at 6 in the morning, set up, you start the scene, start shooting. Three hours later, it is pitch black and rainy.

If someone doesn't believe enough in your product to put money in to it, then you should rethink how good the product is.

As an actor, the training I received was that I walk through the world as an observer of life and of people. My job is to actually be looking out all the time and watching people.

There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.

I've commissioned an adaptation of 'The Jungle', by Upton Sinclair, a story of a young immigrant from Lithuania to the meat-packing industry of Chicago in 1904, and the rise of the unions in America.

Knowing yourself and expressing it is hip. I think knowing yourself is the real journey, for me anyway.

I started in theater. I did theater professionally for seven years with my company before I started doing 'Friends.' I was waiting tables and doing theater.

I'm always looking for a good role.

It's a job - someone's gotta kiss Jennifer Aniston. The reality is, Jennifer and I can do our job well because we truly are friends. But when the day's over, she goes home to her boyfriend and I go home to a magazine.

And, again, I'm the first one to say that I'm not going be successful at everything.