David Schwimmer was 'jealous' of monkey co-star

7 July 2021

David Schwimmer was “jealous” of his monkey co-star on ‘Friends’, the show's animal trainer has claimed.

David Schwimmer

The 54-year-old actor – who played Ross Geller on the show - recently admitted he hated sharing scenes on the first series of the sitcom with his character’s mischievous pet Marcel because the animal regularly messed up their takes.

And now Mike Morris – who trained the two Capuchin monkeys, Katie and Monkey, who played Marcel – has hit back at the star and insisted the actor resented the laughs the creatures got in their scenes.

He told The Sun US: “I just don’t agree with it, if anything he threw off their timing if we want to be truthful.”

“Schwimmer was fine with the monkeys for the first couple of episodes and happy to be there.

“But people would laugh at the monkey and I think he got jealous because it wasn’t him getting the laughs.”

TMorris claimed the actor then “seemed to get a little bitter” about the monkeys being there and would not rehearse scenes with them.

The animal handler claimed David “seemed to get a little bitter” about the monkeys being on set and refused to rehearse with them.

He added: “It got to the point where he just really resented the monkey being there, he obviously had a problem with her and he’s still talking about it now.”

Monkey recently died of cancer and Mike slammed the actor for “talking ill of the dead” when he made his comments.

He added: “I find it despicable for him to still be speaking ill of her.”

During the 'Friends' reunion special, the cast were asked if there was anything they disliked about the show and David said bluntly: "Yes. The monkey."

While co-star Jennifer Aniston insisted she "loved" the creature, David insisted there were valid reasons for his unhappiness.

He said: "That's because you didn't have to touch it.

"I want to say, I love animals. I'm an animal lover, but here's my problem....

"The monkey would mess up scenes and when it didn't do its job right, we would have to go again over and over.

"The monkey didn't hit its mark, I'm sorry.

"That combined with the trainer giving the monkey live grubs to eat. He would eat in and I would have monkey grub hands all over my face.

"It was time to.... it was time for Marcel to f*** off!"

Courteney Cox also admitted she wasn't a fan, and nor was Matthew Perry.