David Schwimmer Makes Fatboy Run

By Mallory Potosky
URL: http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/david_schwimmer_run_fatboy_run_20080327/
It’s impossible to talk of David Schwimmer and not mention "Friends", the ‘90s sitcom that helped to define the decade’s comedic expectations and much of its sensibility. But it’s been four years since Ross Gellar stopped paying weekly visits to audiences around the world and Schwimmer is on to bigger things.

For years now he has toiled away in theater (co-founding Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company) and television, both in positions seen and unseen. Over the course of the ten years "Friends" was on the air, Schwimmer directed 10 episodes of the hit series, but in ways similar to his theater directing credits, it was always a “controlled environment. You never have to worry about sound, for instance, or changes in the weather—it suddenly raining for two hours after you start filming.” Yet, on the set of his feature directorial debut, Run, Fatboy, Run, Schwimmer encountered that and much more.