New Friend for the West End

David Schwimmer made his name - not to mention a multi-million dollar fortune - playing doe-eyed, lovelorn Ross in Friends.

Now, after 10 years starring alongside Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow and the rest of the Central Perk regulars, he is to fulfil his lifelong ambition of starring in the West End.

He will take the lead role in Some Girls, a new play by the world's most in-demand playwright Neil LaBute, at the Gielgud Theatre in May.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Schwimmer said: "I've always dreamed of doing a play in London."

Schwimmer, 38, conceded that ending Friends changed his life dramatically. He said: "Although it's only been a year last week since we ended filming it feels like many many, many moons ago.

"I talked about this with Lisa only last week - it feels a lifetime ago. I miss everyone but we see each other individually, one on one and socially, and I've directed Matt LeBlanc's show a few times. It was wonderful to step back on the same soundstage we used to shoot Friends."

He added: "It feels like a huge 10-year chapter of my life has closed."

During the 13-week run, Schwimmer will play an emotionally crippled womaniser
who is engaged. But before he proposes, he decides to revisit four ex-girlfriends - and the encounters are far from healthy.

Schwimmer said: "In some ways it is easy to make the commitment on paper or in public - but it's making the choice in your heart that counts.

"The play is funny and dark - it's all about the hurt that people go through. Neil uses this man to represent a selfcentred point of view which, when we come down to it, everyone has."

He added: "I've never been married or engaged but at this time of my life this play speaks to me about something I and my contemporaries are going through and have gone through.

"It's about relationships and the choices people make, learning to live with those choices, and recovering from the damage done when those choices go wrong."

Perhaps thinking of Aniston's recent break-up with Brad Pitt he added: "Most of my friends are married with kids, and now I'm starting to see what happens to one or two of those marriages when they start to deteriorate."