Classic Ross! News broke this week that David Schwimmer may be to blame for the lack of a Friends reunion, and Jimmy Fallon recruited a less-than-impressive Schwimmer impersonator to give some answers on The Tonight Show on Thursday, April 30.
“In a recent interview, actress Courteney Cox hinted that David Schwimmer is the reason the entire cast of Friends hasn’t reunited yet,” Fallon, 40, began to his studio audience. “I gotta say, if that’s true then it’s a bit of a bummer, you know? So we wanted to hear from David Schwimmer himself.”
“We wanted to hear what he has to say, so we have him on the phone right now from Los Angeles,” Fallon continued, before queuing up audio of a man who purported to be the actor. “David, are you there?”
A mediocre imitator of Schwimmer could then be heard repeating Ross Geller’s trademark extended greeting of “Hiiii…” While he put in a valiant effort with the forlorn hello, the fake Schwimmer’s performance just went downhill from there.
The fake Schwimmer made reference to his on-screen love Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), going on to give shout-outs to Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe. While Fallon didn’t have a real answer from the actual Schwimmer, 48, the actor does have a history of being less than enthusiastic about revisiting his famed role.
Aniston, Cox, and Lisa Kudrow dusted off their Friends personas for an epic skit on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last year, Matt LeBlanc famously continued his turn as Joey Tribbiani in the NBC show Joey, and Matthew Perry regularly touches on his experience as Chandler Bing in interviews, while Schwimmer has spoken about moving past the series in hopes of becoming an independent actor outside of Ross.
“It [will] probably [take] 10 years for people to look at me and not see Ross,” he explained to The Telegraph in 2011, just seven years after Friends wrapped. “Look, I don’t know if I’d have a career without Friends, so I’m really grateful for everything that the show gave us.”
