Cast ‘constantly followed by 3 or 4 cars’

The one with the fame.

David Schwimmer’s effort as Ross Geller on “Friends” launched his career and earned him a staggering $1 million per episodes in its final seasons. But there is one aspect of the Central Perk experience he would change in retrospect.

“Advice I would give my younger self … I’d say maybe enjoy it more,” he told The Post exclusively while promoting his new series, “Goosebumps: The Vanishing.”

“Enjoy the ride a bit more. The thing about being a public figure at a young age is, for me, it was actually pretty scary at that point in my life,” he explained. “All of us were sort of constantly followed by three or four cars at a time. No matter where we went, you had no privacy anymore. And that to me, my answer to that, I would just give my advice to my younger self as well just to enjoy it all more. Because it was scary at the time for younger actors.”

Schwimmer, now 58, was only 27 when he started filming beloved NBC comedy, which ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. The New York-based series, which was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in LA, also starring Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry, who died at age 54 from the acute effects of ketamine on October 28, 2023.

In 2016, Schwimmer recalled how becoming a household name almost overnight affected his personal life as well.

“It was pretty jarring, and it messed with my relationships with other people in a way that took years, I think, for me to adjust to and get comfortable with,” he told the Hollywood Reporter at the time. “As an actor, the way I was trained, my job was to observe life and to observe other people, and so I used to walk around with my head in the air and really engaged and observing people. The effect of celebrity was the absolute opposite: It made me want to hide under a baseball cap, not be seen. And I realized after a while that I was no longer looking at people. So I tried to figure out: How can I be an actor in this new world, in this new situation? How do I do my job? So it was difficult.”

The cast reunited in honor of the show 20th anniversary of an HBO Max special in 2021. Since saying goodbye to “Friends,” Schwimmer notably portrayed Robert Kardashian in Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” and can now be seen in the series “Goosebumps: The Vanishing.”

Season 2 premiered on Disney+ and Hulu on January 10 and features Schwimmer as a recently divorced father, Anthony Brewer, to twins Devin and Cece. Advice to his young cast would be to “put in the work.”

“Don’t get lazy,” he told The Post.

“Luckily, these young actors on this show — they’re just so naturally talented, great instincts. They did the work. They knew their shit. So I didn’t really have to give them a lot of advice,” he continued. “I would say that if they start getting really, really famous or whatever, if they could afford it, I’d talk to them then. But mostly I would just say focus on work. Enjoy what you do.”

Schwimmer who has also appeared in “Six Days Seven Nights”, “Band of Brothers” and stated Melman in “Madagascar”, noted that participating in “Goosebumps: The Vanishing” was “an opportunity to challenge” himself “and grow as an actor and try something new.”

“I would say that the most encouraging thing for me is when I’m presented with something that I’ve never done before. And this was one of those things. I’ve never been able to be in an action comedy or horror series. And I’m a real fan of the genre. I’ve always wanted to be in one,” he said.

For Schwimmer, how he chooses roles has changed since he started in the business.

“In this chapter of my life, I enjoy being a father so much that in real life it’s a lot for me to want to leave home and be away from my child for a month or four months at a time,” he explained. . “So I was very lucky, doubly lucky, that this happened to shoot in New York, where I live, so I didn’t have to leave home. I get to be in my own bed and see my child every day. And then it was fantastic.”

The actor welcomed daughter Cleo in 2011 with ex-wife Cleo Buckman.

While at home, Schwimmer read “Say Out of the Basement,” on which his character Anthony is based, to prepare for the series.

“I would have loved to talk to him,” he said of not speaking to “Goosebumps” writer RL Stine before production. “It was really fun to read it and of course to read the script and to meet with the writers and hear where the whole journey of these eight episodes is going. I was just really excited to be a part of this incredible world that is goosebumps. So many people just love the stories and love the books.”

All eight episodes of “Goosebumps: The Vanishing” are now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.