Success Quote by David Schwimmer

Schwimmer’s line is a quietly anxious dispatch from inside the fame machine: success doesn’t just change your schedule, it changes the social physics around you. The “danger” isn’t arrogance in the cartoon sense; it’s the subtler drift that happens when rooms start laughing a beat too early, when people pre-edit their honesty because your name now carries currency. He’s describing how celebrity warps feedback loops. Compliments become easier, friction becomes rarer, and suddenly your self-image is being built from funhouse mirrors you didn’t install.

The phrasing matters. “The last three or so years” signals a specific swell - the kind that arrives fast enough to feel unreal, slow enough to seep into identity. And “start treating you differently” puts the responsibility where it belongs: on the crowd’s behavior, not the star’s supposed moral failure. Schwimmer isn’t asking for sainthood; he’s asking for calibration.

Then comes the antidote: friends as reality enforcement. “Hey, wake up!” is blunt, even a little comic, the verbal equivalent of a slapstick reset button. It’s also an admission that self-awareness alone won’t cut it when the world is invested in your myth. The subtext is almost procedural: you need people who predate your success, people who lose nothing by puncturing your bubble. In an era that markets fame as validation, Schwimmer frames it as a test of perception - and friendship as the last honest instrument you can trust.