Over the years, the Friends theme song, I’ll Be There for You by The Rembrandts has become one of the most recognisable TV anthems of all time. However, for a long time, actor David Schwimmer wasn’t particularly fond of it. During a recent appearance on Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ Making a Scene podcast, the 58-year-old actor who played the role of Ross Geller on the show, revealed that hearing the song repeatedly throughout the show’s 10-season run took a toll on him. “I never watched the show after we finished it,” he admitted to the hosts. Lucas, 51, quipped, “Same, I never watched your show.”
David went on to explain, “For me, it’s like, I did it, I’m moving on. I don’t really go back and revisit.” However, his perspective shifted when his daughter, Cleo, developed an interest in the show at around nine years old. David, who shares the 13-year-old with ex-wife Zoë Buckman, recalled how her newfound love for the series changed things for him.
“I’ll be really honest, there was a time for quite a while that just hearing the theme song would really,” he said, pausing as he struggled to put the feeling into words. He sighed before adding, “You know what I mean? I just had that reaction. I mean, I just had heard it so many times.”
Adding some humour, Matt chimed in with the song’s famous opening line: “Well, no one told you life was going to be that way.” David responded with a simple, “Correct, thank you.” He explained that every time he made a public appearance, the song would be played as his introduction, which contributed to his reluctance to hear it. “And any time you’d go on a show or a talk show or an interview, that would be your intro song. So I just didn’t have the greatest response to it,” he said.
But everything changed when he heard it through his daughter’s ears. “I’d be making breakfast or whatever and I’d hear my kid’s laughter,” he recalled. “My whole relationship to that song and to the show changed.”
Friends premiered on September 22, 1994, and followed six young adults navigating life and love in Manhattan. Alongside David, the popular sitcom starred Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), and the late Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing). Last year, the show celebrated 30 years since its debut.
