HE ONCE said ‘I haven’t even come close to an engagement’ – but for Friends star David Schwimmer that now looks in the past.

Sources close to the 43-year-old actor say he wants to marry part-time photographer, Zoe Buckman, who is 20 years his junior.

The couple met in 2007 when Zoe, 23, was working as a waitress and served at Schwimmer’s table at the Cuckoo Club in London’s West End.

At the time he was directing the movie Run Fatboy Run in East London. Now Zoe has left her home in England and moved to the US to live with the actor.

“David is smitten with Zoe and says she is the one,” a friend working closely with Schwimmer told The Mail on Sunday newspaper in the UK.

“Things have moved very fast. He wanted to see how they got along living together and it has been a big success

“He wants to ask Zoe to marry him, it’s just a case of timing.

“He has been living with Zoe in Chicago recently working on a stage show called Trust and they will probably make an announcement when they come back to LA.

“We are all bracing ourselves for good news. He has said we won’t have to wait long.”

Brunette Zoe has already introduced Schwimmer, who is notoriously private, to her family and they all spent last Christmas together.

Earlier this year the couple were seen shopping hand in hand in New York and Zoe has told her family she may stay in LA for good to set up a permanent home with him.

A spokesman for Schwimmer declined to comment.