Who was the first person to be cast on the American TV show "Friends"?

David Lawrence Schwimmer (born November 2, 1966) is an American actor, comedian, director and producer.

Schwimmer began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in theater and speech. After graduation, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company. For much of the late 1980s, he lived in Los Angeles as a struggling, unemployed actor, until he starred in the television movie "A Deadly Silence" in 1989 and appeared in a number of television roles in the early 1990s, including "L.A. Law", "The Wonder Years", "NYPD Blue", and "Monty".

In 1994, Schwimmer was cast as Dr. Ross Geller in NBC's situation comedy "Friends", a series that revolved around a group of friends who live near each other in Manhattan. He played a hopeless-romantic paleontologist who works at a museum and later becomes a professor at a university. Schwimmer initially turned down the role as Ross, but accepted later. Executive producer Kevin S. Bright said that he had previously worked with Schwimmer, the character of Ross was written with him in mind, and he was the first actor cast. The show debuted on September 22, 1994, and was watched by almost 22 million American viewers.