Jason Segel and Ali Wong on Proving Themselves as Drama Actors and Laughing Through Life’s Most Miserable Moments

It’s no surprise that Jason Segel hit it off with Ali Wong, given their common backgrounds in comedy. And yet both performers don’t want to be boxed in by humor — they’re contenders in the Emmy race for playing characters who are far from happy-go-lucky. In Apple TV+’s “Shrinking,” Segel (also a co-creator on the show) plays a widowed father dealing with his monotonous life as a therapist, while Wong stars in Netflix’s “Beef” as a business owner caught in a game of revenge.

ALI WONG: I first saw you on “Freaks and Geeks” on the VHS tapes that my boyfriend at the time’s father bought on eBay.

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JASON SEGEL: I was a kid. I started out acting in high school, then comedy found me. I did “How I Met Your Mother” for nine seasons. At 33, that ended. I felt like, “Boy, I used to think I could do anything, and now I just do comedy.” I had this nagging itch — like, “I wonder if I can do other stuff.”

WONG: Yeah.

SEGEL: I did drama for a few years, but I swung really hard in that direction and started to feel like, “Let’s try to integrate these things.” At the same time, Bill Lawrence called me out of the blue and was like, “Hey, I want to make a show. Do you want to do it together?”

WONG: Some people feel like they need to strip away all of the comedy to prove themselves as a dramatic actor. I like that you didn’t do that.

SEGEL: I’ve been through some tough stuff in my life, and I laughed my way through it. Some of the funniest moments were the times I was the most miserable.

WONG: When you’re like, “I used to think I could do anything,” I’m very proud of the fact that I can’t do everything. The things that I can do, I know the minute that I read it if I connect to it or not.

SEGEL: How many scripts did you get when you got “Beef”?

WONG: Sonny [showrunner Lee Sung Jin] called me one day. He always had Steven Yeun in mind. And then, he was like, “I thought the other person in the road rage incident would be a white male — like a Stanley Tucci-type. Maybe it’d be much more interesting if it was you.” The grief you experienced, was that challenging or is that something you go in and out of really fast?

SEGEL: I worked a lot in my 20s and 30s, and at some point, couldn’t quite figure out why I was doing any of it. I basically had an existential crisis. So I started only taking movies where I would be around somebody I really admired just so I could ask them questions. Because I read this crazy interview between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson. Michael invited Kobe to Neverland Ranch when Kobe was a rookie and gave him all this advice. And one of the pieces of advice he gave Kobe was when you’re around someone you admire, don’t be a fan. And ask them every question that you think will be helpful to you on your journey.

WONG: Because you don’t go to school for making these kinds of decisions?

SEGEL: Right. I try to think of what I’m trying to explore. So for “Shrinking,” it was grief. We filmed right after the pandemic. We all had this sense that something was taken from us that we’ll never get back.

What were you thinking when you were making “Beef”?

WONG: There were times when we would shoot 10 pages in one day. I have to work really hard to memorize the words and then once I do, I try to be present, listen and say the words.

SEGEL: When you started with stand-up, did you want to parlay it into acting?

WONG: Not really. I just wanted to tell jokes for a living. I started acting in sitcoms because it was a great way for me to justify doing sets for free at night.

SEGEL: Have you ever, in your own life, felt the way your character felt: Everything outside is seemingly going so well, and you feel like you’re holding it together by a thread?

WONG: Sometimes. How about you?

SEGEL: I’m only just now starting to believe that everything’s OK. I’m 43. But that has not been my experience of how I feel during any of it. I’m always a little bit scared of, “How do I keep it up?”

Set Design: Lucy Holt; Production: Alexey Galetskiy/AGPNYC

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