David Schwimmer reveals one 'Friends' catchphrase he still hears everywhere

David Schwimmer reflected on the lasting impact of Friends during a Good Morning America appearance, where he was promoting his new show The Vanishing, and shared the one catchphrase from his character Ross Geller that still follows him everywhere.

The actor who played Ross Geller on Friends says he's constantly bombarded by fans yelling "Pivot!" - a nod to the show's infamous couch-moving scene that has become a cultural phenomenon.

"Sometimes it's startling," quipped Schwimmer. "But also it's just a reminder that the series lives on." When co-host Robin Roberts praised the actor for being willing to revisit his past role several years on, the actor called the sitcom "the gift that keeps on giving."

“When I meet people on the street from another country and they say, ‘I just have to say, I learned English watching your show,’ or a father stops me and says, 'My kid was really, really ill and the one thing that kept them going in the hospital was just watching Friends,’ you feel really grateful and blessed to have done something that people find fun,” said Schwimmer.

The popular sitcom Friends, which aired on NBC from 1994 to 2004, revolved around the lives of six inseparable friends in New York. In a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly, marking the show's 25th anniversary, co-creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman revealed that they were surprised by the enduring popularity of the infamous "pivot" scene, which has become an iconic moment in pop culture.

"I remember in the writers' room there was a discussion about, 'Can we do a story as simple as getting a couch up a flight of stairs?'" recalled Crane. "Even on stage that was fantastically funny," he says. "The three of them were just brilliant and it was all they could do to get through it."

"You never ever anticipate that kind of thing," added Crane of "pivot!" becoming a signature catchphrase among fans of the show. "You're just trying to tell funny stories and have it work. There was never an eye toward, 'Wow, this is an iconic moment.'"