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Wednesday, May 1, 1996

By Lael Loewenstein

Daily Bruin Contributor

David Schwimmer inadvertently owes a lot to Pontius Pilate.

When he auditioned for the role of Ross on "Friends," Schwimmer had just finished playing Pilate in a stage play and was still sporting the close-cropped haircut that might have been popular some 2000 years ago. After the NBC sitcom took off, legions of Schwimmer's twentysomething fans were soon requesting Ross' haircut. But the trend was nothing more than a fluke of timing.

"I couldn't go longer, so I went shorter," Schwimmer explains with a shrug. "And it was so weird because everybody thought I was trying to make some kind of a statement."

If any statement at all lay behind his actions, Schwimmer was announcing that he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. He makes that same assertion now, sitting in a suite of New York's Rhiga Royal Hotel, looking mature in a pressed gray suit. With his new movie "The Pallbearer," due out on Friday, Schwimmer is poised to cross over to film stardom.

In "The Pallbearer," Schwimmer plays Tom Thompson, an architect desperately seeking a job, a girlfriend and a life. When Bill Abernathy, a high school acquaintance suddenly dies, Tom finds himself entangled in a web of mistaken identity and confusion. No sooner has he bedded Bill's mother (Barbara Hershey) than he also discovers the girl of his dreams, high school acquaintance Julie (Gwyneth Paltrow).

He clearly charmed his fellow cast and crew. Paltrow says she adored working with him, and director Matt Reeves says, "David has this sad, beautiful face ­ the kind of face where you can always see his pain. He was perfect for the part." It's easy to see why: in person, Schwimmer is down-to-earth, funny, and forthcoming. And he takes his acting very seriously."

He has an extensive background in theater and has already done small parts in films like "Wolf" and "Crossing the Bridge." But to take on his first extra­"Friends" project and his first starring role, he deliberated carefully. He decided on "The Pallbearer" after having read no less than 40 scripts.

"What attracted me to this script was that there didn't seem to be one extraneous word in it," he says. "Every image, every scene was so fully envisioned that I could not imagine anything being cut. Of course, a lot was cut later, but that happens."

Part of the attraction of Reeves and Jason Katims' script was that Schwimmer felt he shared a good deal with the character he was to play.

"I could definitely identify with Tom," he admits. "There was a time in my life when I needed to cut the umbilical cord and strike out on my own and find out who I was. It's the same for Tom ­ he's looking for a foothold. He's in his mid-20s and he's still living at home. He loves his mom, but he feels this need to distance himself from her."

Schwimmer's own period of ambivalence came when he left California to attend Northwestern University in Chicago. College provided the opportunity for much personal development, but he was still financially dependent on his parents.

"There were times when I really wanted to be financially independent, when I wanted to be on my own, but I knew I couldn't," he says. "So as soon as I could take care of my own bills, I could begin to renew my relationship with my parents."

Aside from his personal identification with Tom, Schwimmer was attracted to the film because it provided a seamless transition to movies from television. There are, he admits, unmistakable shades of Ross in Tom: both are insecure, vulnerable, sensitive guys.

"I knew it was important to do a comedy the first time out," he says. "I figured that most of my audience would come because of the TV show, and it might have been too much of a change for them to see me playing a bad guy in a thriller or in a serious dramatic film."

Schwimmer also knew that audiences and critics around the nation would be watching to see if he could be successful on the big screen. With the track records of TV actors who make movies uneven at best, Schwimmer's first foray into movies was bound to be scrutinized.

If "The Pallbearer" succeeds, it could do for Schwimmer what "Saturday Night Fever" did for "Welcome Back Kotter" star John Travolta ­ effectively putting him on the map. But there are no guarantees. When David Caruso left "NYPD Blue" for Hollywood after only one season, his first effort, last spring's "Kiss of Death," was a minor hit. Then came the abysmal flop "Jade," a humiliation which must have made Caruso long for the security of the hit cop show. The one-time TV Guide cover subject was yesterday's news.

For his part, Schwimmer doesn't plan to "pull a Caruso." He remains faithful to the hit series, as do his co-stars. All the cast members are contractually committed for another three years.

Still, he is understandably afraid of being typecast. Having played similar characters in "Friends" and "Pallbearer," he longs for different opportunities.

"The strangest thing for me now is being known as a funny, vulnerable whiner," he admits. "I've played at least 50 characters (in stage productions and on television), and none of them were like that. But obviously if you play a character without variation there is a danger of that role seeping into your work and defining your persona."

To avoid typecasting, he will seek out varied film roles and continue to work in theater. Eight years ago when he was fresh out of college, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company, a Chicago-based group. He has worked with Lookingglass as actor and director in several productions ranging from classics to avant garde.

"I want to play characters that will stretch me or challenge me or enable me to bring out different parts of my own personality," he explains. "The attraction for me is in telling great stories."

"The Pallbearer" afforded Schwimmer just such an opportunity ­ to tell a great story, while also making a crucial career move.

"Basically," he says, "this was a movie that I could look back on in 20 years and be proud."

FILM: "The Pallbearer," directed by Matt Reeves. Opens Friday.

David Schwimmer and Barbara Hershey star in "The Pallbearer."

Gwyneth Paltrow and David Schwimmer in "The Pallbearer."