David Schwimmer & Ana Ortiz Tease Their ‘Goosebumps’ Characters & How They Relate to Ross & Hilda, As Schwimmer Revels In His Horror Debut

Denise Petski
·3 min read

David Schwimmer is loving his time in Goosebumps Season 2, his acting debut in the horror-comedy genre.

“I think I might be more excited than your kids,” a gleeful Schwimmer told his co-star Anna Ortiz in a red carpet interview with Deadline at Disney’s upfront presentation in New York City on Monday.

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Schwimmer and Ortiz star as Anthony and Jen, respectively, in Season 2 of the Disney+ anthology series.

From Disney Branded Television and produced by Sony Pictures Television, Goosebumps is based on R.L Stine’s bestselling Scholastic series. Each season features a new story, setting and cast. Per the official logine, “Season 2 follow teenage siblings who discover a threat stirring, triggering a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery. As they delve into the unknown, the duo find themselves entangled in the chilling tale of four teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994.”

“This is one of my absolute favorite genres,” Schwimmer said, “and I’ve never had the opportunity to act in this, so doing horror action-comedy has just been an absolute treat.”

The two also talked about their individual characters and how they related to the iconic characters each previously played – Ortiz as Hilda, in Ugly Betty and Schwimmer as Ross in Friends.

“I love that both of these [characters], Hilda and Jen, the character I play now, [an NYC police detective], are like staunch New Yorkers as am I, so that’s a really fun thing that all three of us have in common and something that I really have a lot of fun playing. I think anytime you can play someone who’s been born and raised in this city, because it’s a very kind of certain type, it’s a lot of fun to do that.”

Schwimmer added, “I love comedy and so when I think obviously of that show Friends and that character, there was a lot of physical comedy that I had the opportunity to do, so in this, which is a horror action comedy I’m revisiting some of those (hopefully) skills that I’m brushing off again because I love to do that kind of stuff.”

As for their characters in Goosebumps, “I play a botanist,” says Schimmer, who’s kind of taken a sabbatical to take care of his mom, who’s unwell, and I’m a divorced dad of these fraternal twins, 17-year-old twins who kind of get really entangled in unearthing this devastating, this traumatic event that happened to both of us, me, it happened to my older brother when I was very young, and Anna plays my older brother’s girlfriend at the time, so something that happened 30 years ago, this really tragic mystery is suddenly coming back to haunt us and pull us back together in a way that we are both kind of not happy with. But it’s also really funny. And because my character’s a botanist, I can say that some of the mystery has to do with a plant-like form of life.”

“I’m a detective so I get to kind of ask all the questions” and help solve the mystery, added Ortiz.

You can watch the interview clips below.

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