David Schwimmer is one of Hollywood’s richest heterosexual bachelors. An Emmy-nominated actor and director, who found worldwide fame in the television series Friends, he could surely have his pick of beautiful women (not to mention aspiring actresses). But Schwimmer’s love life is even more unsuccessful than that of Ross Geller, his hapless Friends alter ego.

“My mother asks me every other week, ‘Have you found a nice girlfriend?’,” the 41-year-old star admits. “Now I’ve started to ask myself the same question. I could have a wife and family by now.”

Ladies, you may now form an orderly queue. But be warned. Schwimmer is already as good as wed to his career, and his mistress is the Lookingglass Theatre Company, a drama group he co-founded after leaving university in Chicago. A good night out is seeing a new play. A relaxing night in is reading a script.

Get him behind the wheel, though, and you could have a bit of fun. He has a Range Rover, for dependability, but there’s also an immaculate 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle, a model he can remember admiring as a boy. “My first car was a 1976 Chevy Monte Carlo, an old used car that only had two doors,” he recalls. “Each door was so wide and long, it weighed about three tons, and the car had swivel bucket seats and a monster engine. I paid about $1,700 for it, and it became my pride and joy.”

He drives happily on the roads of the three cities where he spends most of his time: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. “I know a lot of people complain about driving, but I find it relaxing,” he says. “And out of the city, on open roads, America still has a lot to offer.”

But don’t go thinking Schwimmer is an easy-going, laid-back kinda guy. Even when he’s not working, there is a strict health and fitness regime to maintain. He exercises as if his life depended on it. And here is his lunch order at Covent Garden hotel, where we meet: mixed berries, pineapple, banana, vanilla yoghurt, no alcohol - of course – and coffee, without milk, which could be dodgy for cholesterol levels.

He is the only actor I’ve interviewed who, when killing time as a waiter while searching for his big break, worked so hard that he was promoted to manager. He stayed in the job, on and off, for seven years. “I opened the new Daily Grill restaurant in West Hollywood,” he recalls with some pride.

All of which may go some way towards explaining why, as far as his love life is concerned, there has not been much to write home about. At least not since a couple of long-term relationships - with Carla Alapont, the Spanish actress (they broke up in 2003), and Mili Avital, the Israeli star of the movie Stargate (they called it quits in 2001) – and a brief dalliance with Natalie Imbruglia, the Australian pop singer, among others. His last relationship – in public, at least – seems to have been with Emmanuelle Perret, the French actress, around the time he was making his London West End debut, in Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute, in 2005.

“I’ve not even come close to an engagement,” he says glumly. “There was one point when I thought I was getting close with Carla, but again I had my priorities in the wrong place. I put work before the relationship, which I always seem to do. I keep on saying to myself that I must put my relationship first. I feel like I am more than ready, then something else turns up.”

This year it was directing his first movie, Run, Fat Boy, Run, starring Simon Pegg, the British comedian, which topped the British box-office chart in September and will be out early next year on DVD. The story is close to Schwimmer’s heart: the hero, Dennis (Pegg), gets cold feet about marrying his pregnant girlfriend, played by Thandie Newton, who then hooks up with a high-flyer, played by Hank Azaria. Dennis enters a marathon to prove to her – and himself – that he’s not a quitter.

So is there anything of the fat boy in Schwimmer? “I recognise all the stuff about not making a commitment,” he says. “But I can’t identify with anything of the fat-guy philosophy of relaxing, taking life as it comes and not worrying or wondering about what happens tomorrow.”

Money, at least, should never again be a worry for Schwimmer. Let’s get a few things straight with the one-time waiter. He receives payments for all 238 episodes of Friends when they are screened at any time, anywhere in the world, right? “Yes.” He has already made tens of millions of dollars – yet is still making more money than he knows what to do with? A pause. “Yes – and yes.”

So why the hard slog? “I haven’t really achieved anything yet,” he says. “The money gives me a freedom to turn down things I don’t want to do. It allows me to design and build a new place to live in New York, to buy art and to live well when I want to.

“But beyond that, it doesn’t buy you a great script, the chance to work with terrific actors and the role of a lifetime. To get those, you need to start all over again.”

Schwimmer is nothing if not driven.

His movie career has been disappointing, and there is a sense that he nags himself constantly. “I have to worry about the detail,” he confirms. “No one else is going to do it for me.”

When I ask what he brings with him when he’s on the road, he delivers a long list. “My iPod, a portable stereo system, digital camera, computer, clothes for any weather, shoes for the same, one black suit, shirt and tie, plus family photos.

“I also have certain food shipped out. When I am on a busy schedule, I have a lot of hot cereals and hot organic soups.”

And what does he miss? “Driving myself in my own cars, being in my kitchen, my own bed, home, family, friends, reading the paper at my kitchen counter, making some eggs . . . ”

He’ll be back home over Christmas, at least, just long enough for his mother to nag him about his love life.

My stuff...

On my CD player Or, more accurately, my iPod. There are so many artists, I can hardly remember them, and they change all the time. Currently, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay

On my DVD player Anything with James Stewart in it, because he always made acting look so easy

In my parking space A Range Rover and a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle

I would never throw away My membership of the Looking glass Theatre Company, Chicago