David Schwimmer recalls 'genuinely frightening moment' from “Friends ”live taping: 'He was going to pass out'

David Schwimmer describes himself as a "genuine fan of horror," though he's had scant opportunities to showcase the spooky side of his range throughout his storied career. But that doesn't mean he hasn't experienced a real sense of fear while filming a scene.

In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly about his starring role in the upcoming second season of Disney+ and Hulu's horror anthology revival Goosebumps (out Jan. 10), Schwimmer recounts a "genuinely frightening moment" while shooting an episode of Friends. "During the live taping of the show, [Matt LeBlanc] is supposed to do a kind of a pratfall, and he actually dislocated his shoulder," Schwimmer explains. "He went totally white, and he stood up, and I could see his shoulder was out. He looked like he was going to pass out."

Schwimmer remembers "immediately turning to the camera like, 'Cut, cut, cut.' That was genuinely frightening. You could see how badly hurt he was. And we had to stop filming that night, obviously, and he went to hospital." Goosebumps has had the actor immerse himself in a menacing world teaming with grisly disappearances, murderously sentient plant life, and unspeakable family tragedy. But as he remembers that moment with LeBlanc, Schwimmer remarks with a shaky chuckle, "That was scary."

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LeBlanc's accident briefly came up during HBO Max's 2021 reunion special. The cast watched a bit of never-before-aired footage behind the scenes of the season 3 episode "The One with the Jam," wincing and exclaiming in shock throughout (well, LeBlanc laughed).

Despite several of its Halloween episodes now being counted as classics, Friends never allowed Schwimmer to fully embrace his inner horror nerd. His only other roles in and around the genre came in films shot on breaks during the sitcom's 10-season run. There was a small part in Mike Nichols' 1994 lupine romance Wolf and larger parts in the 1998 Stephen King adaptation Apt Pupil and Mike Figgis's 2001 horror comedy Hotel.

Schwimmer remembers reacting to "the call, 'They're interested in you for Goosebumps'" with "genuine excitement... I was like, 'Wait, what?' Because I've never been able to act in horror-action-comedy, and I'm such a fan. I'm a genuine fan of horror."

Goosebumps is an adaptation of the popular series of children's horror novels by R.L. Stine. Rather than replicating the episodic anthology format of the beloved '90s series adaptation, the new show developed by Rob Letterman and Nicholas Stoller with showrunner Hilary Winston is anthologized by season.

Last season followed the travails of five disparate high schoolers who must band together to survive the outbreak of evil forces from a creepy local home where a teen once died in a fire. This season, subtitled "The Vanishing," casts Schwimmer as Anthony Brewer, a botanist dealing with the steep decline of his aging mother, who opens his Brooklyn home to his kids (Sam McCarthy and Jayden Bartels) for the summer. Anthony was rocked by a shocking disappearance in his childhood, which threatens to recur in the new generation — unless he can harness his science skills to stop it.

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"Let me start by saying, even within the horror genre, there are so many types of horror," Schwimmer says of what attracted him to the role. "For me, what I love to do is to really kind of figure out, 'Okay, what is the tone here? What is the tone of this project?' Here, it's horror within a certain audience. It's geared toward a certain audience. There's also comedy, there's also action, and there's also drama."

Related: How the new Goosebumps TV show pays homage to R.L. Stein's beloved books

"One of the things I'm kind of in awe of is the tone. They managed to get these good scares," Schwimmer explains, "But they do it in a way where it's never gratuitous violence, there's no sexual violence. It's not too gory... they manage to make you feel safe while you're getting scared."

Goosebumps is, after all, a children's property. Though the new series skews more young adult, there's still a content consideration in mind when meting out death and destruction. Schwimmer thinks the key to ensuring the series is scary enough for adults but not too scary for kids is its genre fusion — blending horror, comedy, and stirring drama, sometimes all in the same scene.

The "tragedy and mystery" of Anthony's family dynamic adds a "kind of sadness underneath everything because of the loss that he's going through." But then "the question becomes, 'Okay, how do you make that funny?'"

Related: David Schwimmer says late Friends costar Matthew Perry was 'reserved' with him

Schwimmer says he "felt that the best way to try to be funny was to underplay everything. To come at it from underneath and throw everything away, throw the comedy away." Schwimmer and McCarty's innate comedic charisma radiates through even the bleakest circumstances, providing "relief for the audience from all the tension."

From responding to true-life terror to finally unleashing his inner horror hound, Schwimmer is stepping into a startling new era in his career.

Goosebumps: The Vanishing premieres all eight episodes on Jan. 10, 2025, on Disney + and Hulu.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly