David Schwimmer trades comedy for horror in 'Goosebumps: The Vanishing'

David Schwimmer starred in Goosebumps: The Vanishing, his first major horror role. 

The actor, most known for his humorous and dramatic roles, says he had wanted to "sink my teeth into" it for years. Hollywood had simply never given him the opportunity.

“I’ve always been a fan of horror, especially of horror action-comedy. The genre is so exciting to me,” Schwimmer tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m a genuine fan, and I’ve never been asked to do it.”

Schwimmer plays Anthony Brewer, a botanist and divorcee who takes a sabbatical to better support his mother with dementia. He then finds himself taking care of his twins, CeCe (Jayden Bartels) and Devin (Sam McCarthy), for the summer in his Brooklyn childhood home in the second season of the Disney+ and Sony Pictures Television series, which released all eight episodes on Friday.

Having experienced a traumatic childhood himself, Anthony is committed to making sure his children enjoy a pleasant summer before their senior year of high school. With the help of a makeshift laboratory he constructed in his basement, he hopes to carry out more research. This plot point is taken straight from R.L. Stine's Goosebumps novel Stay Out of the Basement.

The actor (who has “done just about all you can do in a half-hour comedy space,” according to Winston) was a wonderful fit tonally for the series, according to co-showrunners Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston, who previously told THR that they appreciate the boundary between comedy and horror.

“We both love casting comedic actors to play dramatic roles. We find that it’s a really interesting, very honest, authentic portrayal of something when someone can dance between comedy and horror,” Letterman explains.

“He’s also a filmmaker and understands it from different levels. Not just from the acting level, but from storytelling, from directing. He vibed on it quite a bit. And he has a 13-year-old kid, so he was also looking at it from that perspective and just wanted to have fun doing something that people don’t know him for.”

Schwimmer had previously portrayed a father, including during his tenure on Friends, but this part was the first time he was able to depict a parental experience that more closely reflected his own life.

“I’ve not been able to play the dad of a teenager, which I am now in real life. So that part of me was also really excited,” he tells THR. “It’s another level of meaningful at this stage.”

Goosebumps: The Vanishing is now streaming all eight episodes on Disney+.