Wistful David Schwimmer floats theory Men In Black could have made him a movie star

"It would have made me a movie star," Schwimmer suggests, saying he turned down the Men In Black role to direct his first film

By William Hughes  |  September 18, 2024 | 6:34pm
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Wistful David Schwimmer floats theory Men In Black could have made him a movie star
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If we’re ranking the former cast members of NBC’s Friends on how artistically diverse their post-superstar efforts have been, it’s easy to place David Schwimmer closer to the Lisa Kudrow side of the scale than some of his compatriots. Not content to settle into his “unlikable paleontologist” niche, Schwimmer has done a lot of different projects in the years since the show went off the air, pulling in critical acclaim for work like his portrayal of Robert Kardashian in The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, and offering up oddball comedy choices like his AppleTV+ series Intelligence. But, excepting his voice work in the Madagascar films, he’s never been what you might call a movie star, and Schwimmer himself has a three-word explanation for why that is: Men In Black.

Appearing recently on the Origins With Cush Jumbo podcast, Schwimmer casts his decision to reject a lead role in Barry Sonnenfeld’s comedy sci-fi blockbuster as a major turning point in his career. Asked if he turned down the lead role in MIB due to scheduling conflicts with Friends, Schwimmer clarified that, no, the movie had been aimed directly at a gap in filming for the NBC mega-hit. The issue: Schwimmer had already booked that time to direct his first film, working with numerous members of his old Chicago theater company for a small-budget comedy called Since You’ve Been Gone.

Calling it a “brutal decision,” Schwimmer says the dilemma grew out of a period when Schwimmer Mania was sweeping the nation. “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,” Schwimmer notes with a laugh. “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.” Speaking about his planned film, which had already set up pre-production and casting when the Men In Black offer came in, Schwimmer asserted,

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. 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.

If he’d taken the Men In Black offer, Schwimmer says, it “would have made me a movie star,” but— “My theater company and that relationship with all those people would probably have ended. I don’t think it would have recovered.”

We do feel moved to note, in the interest of objective reality, that, while Schwimmer is a charismatic actor, and while Men In Black derives some of its fun from its premise, writing, and Tommy Lee Jones’ performance, we are also having a very, very difficult time imagining the movie making the enormous impact it made on the 1997 box office without Will Smith in its lead role. (Certainly, it’s hard to imagine Schwimmer’s version of a theme song getting as much MTV play.) Which isn’t to say the movie, which made more than $500 million in our reality, wouldn’t have raised his profile considerably. But we don’t necessarily think Schwimmer needs to beat himself up for missing out on what his old pal Gwyneth might have called a Sliding Doors moment. And while Since You’ve Been Gone ended up getting a TV movie release on ABC well after the fact, and has faded into obscurity, we have to genuinely admire Schwimmer for sticking by his pals, noting, “You have to follow your gut, you have to follow your heart.”

[via THR]

 
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