David Schwimmer: ‘I was a roller-skating waiter for seven years’

The actor, 54, on childhood activism, studying drama at Oxford, bringing up his daughter and learning to fight the good fight

My parents are my heroes. I marvel how they were able to work as young lawyers while keeping family as a priority. They raised my sister and me with a hyper-awareness of justice, equality and gay rights. I have memories of protesting on picket lines. It really informed my worldview and perspective.

I wanted to be a surgeon. I was fascinated by the human body: I knew everything about the lymph lymphatic, the vascular and the skeletal systems. I was a big science geek, but I found that I could talk to more girls in acting class than in the science lab. So that kind of derailed my medical career.