Jason Segel On ‘Shrinking’, Harrison Ford’s Improv Skills And “Why Rock Bottom Is Actually A Pretty Funny Place”

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In Apple TV+ series Shrinking, Jason Segel stars as Jimmy Laird, a therapist desperately in need of therapy. Following the death of his wife, Jimmy has dissolved into drugs and self-destruction, to the disgust of his teen daughter (Lukita Maxwell). And yet, he is curiously likeable and redeemable — such is the magic of Segel. Then comes Jimmy’s revelatory move: he decides his patients need a dose of the unvarnished truth. Disaster and hilarity ensue. In tandem with Ted Lasso’s Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, Segel co-created and produces Shrinking. He stars alongside Harrison Ford, who apparently enjoys a little improv with the best of them.

DEADLINE: You’re ramping up for Shrinking Season 2. Tell me Brett Goldstein is going to star in it this time?

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JASON SEGEL: I don’t want to give anything away, but everyone, myself included, is pushing really hard to have Brett on the show. I want to act with him so badly because he and I have become quite good friends during this process. I just think he’s brilliant. I think he’s funny. I also think that [his Ted Lasso character] Roy is a kind of gruff exterior. Brett’s a really gentle guy. He’s a sweet, lovely, gentle man, and so I’m excited to see Brett get to expose all sorts of different parts of himself. That sounds like a euphemism, but that’s not what I meant [laughs]. In my head, when I look at Brett, I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s a romantic lead.’ I’m excited to see him do stuff like that.

DEADLINE: Brett’s story about getting Harrison Ford on board is just comedy gold, where he goes to Harrison’s house and says Indiana Jones answers the door.

SEGEL: I believe that that happened in London. I think that Brett was shooting Lasso, and Harrison was shooting Indiana Jones. I went to Harrison’s house on my own once he signed on. All the way leading up, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve done this a long time. This’ll be fine. This’ll be great, just a couple of actors talking shop.’ Then you pull up to Harrison Ford’s house, and suddenly, you realize you’re terrified. You look in the rearview mirror, and you’re drenched in sweat. Just when you start to dry off, the gate starts to open, and it’s too late. You don’t want him to see you drying the sweat, so you play it cool. There’s a reason he’s Harrison Ford. I did something with Robert Redford a few years ago, and it was a similar experience, where you’re like, ‘Oh, I get it. You’re the real deal.’ You feel it in the room, same with Sally Field, who I worked with.

Shrinking
Segel and Harrison Ford in Shrinking.

DEADLINE: In first creating Shrinking, Bill Lawrence was inspired by a neighbor’s tragedy, a shocking starting place for a comedy. Why do you think he chose that?

SEGEL: Getting to rock bottom is drama. But rock bottom is actually a pretty funny place. The bad sh*t happened before, and now you’re at this place where even though it seems like the worst place, the only way to go is up when you’re at rock bottom. So, you don’t know it at the time, but it’s actually a very hopeful place to start. If you start someone at the peak, I can tell you where they’re going: down. Starting someone at rock bottom is actually a recipe for feel-good.

DEADLINE: The whole drama-comedy blend is such British humor to me, where you undercut and never let anything get too funny or too sad.

SEGEL: Yeah, for me, it was Broadcast News. I saw that movie just as I was getting interested in writing in my teenage years and, [it was] oh, this is the tone of life. It’s like where you’re laughing your way through really tough conversations. That scene between Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter. He basically says, “I’m in love with you.” And she says, “I’m in love with Tom.” It’s the most complicated, funny, heartbreaking, beautiful, honest… None of those punchlines are anything but true. And I think that that really inspired me. It’s like I’m not that interested in seeing someone be clever. When I get a script, and I feel like this is a smart writer, not a smart character, I am not interested in it. People don’t talk that way. People don’t think that fast when they’re under duress.

DEADLINE: I read that Bill had pitched a version of Shrinking years ago to Warner Bros. and they thought it was maybe a bit depressing?

SEGEL: I didn’t know that. That’s funny.

DEADLINE: How did you feel when you first read the premise?

SEGEL: Well, I guess what I felt was I worked really hard at comedy for 10, 12 years. And so, all modesty aside, I just feel as though I know how to do it, and I’m really interested in comedy. I have a lot of reference points lodged in this weird brain of mine, and I got some moves. I kind of know how to do it. Drama was something that I had been working really hard to feel that same way about. But then comedy found me. And I didn’t get a chance to hone those skills. There’s some probably innate talent threshold that you have to have to get a chance at any of it, but then I think it’s skill-based. I think this is study and practice and learning not to be afraid and learning not to show off when the camera’s getting closer to you, all these skills. So, I spent the past seven years trying to get good at drama, feel good about it and not feel afraid of it. So then, when this came to me, I felt like, now, what if we try to use all these things that we’ve been working really hard to get good at because the tone of this is all of it.


Shrinking
Harrison Ford and Lukita Maxwell

DEADLINE: Watching Shrinking, I thought, ‘My god, I’ve always wanted a therapist to tell me what to do.’ It’s the fantasy.

SEGEL: Totally. It’s like Jonah Hill said it really well in his documentary about [therapist] Phil Stutz, “You have all of these friends who you don’t want advice from telling you what to do, and the one person you do want advice from who’s not allowed.” It’s really true.

DEADLINE: In the case of Jimmy’s patients, maybe a lot of them needed to hear the truth.

SEGEL: I think that guy, Phil Stutz, who I guess I have to say it’s loosely based on, or is not actually based on him but…

DEADLINE:…is very, very loosely inspired by?

SEGEL: Yeah. He had that same frustration from years of real practice of saying, “This is a loop. This is just a feedback loop. And just because you can identify why someone is doing something, which is what a big part of therapy seems to be, it doesn’t necessarily actually help in changing the behavior.” It’s like, ‘Oh, great, got it. My mom said this when I was 15, that’s why I’m doing this. Now what?’ And what he did was come up with this system called ‘the tools’ where he said, “I’m going to teach you how to change this today, how to walk out of this room with some sense of hope that your behavior’s going to change.” And I think it’s like a revolution. That’s certainly what I’m looking for. Man, I just want to feel better in general. You know what I mean?

DEADLINE: How do you get into a place where you are in the desolation of grief that Jimmy deals with?

SEGEL: I think that probably one of the reasons that I am funny is because I, as a default setting, struggle with happiness. I have a sense of impending doom. And I have to work pretty hard to counter that. I have all of these tools I have to do in the morning so that I feel OK by the time I take on the world. And I think that alone is frustrating and hilarious. God, I have to do so much work just to f*cking get to the point of interaction with the world. So that stuff has never been hard for me to draw on because I may just be more conscious of these feelings, I may have too much attachment to them, but my experience has been that we all relate. Almost everyone I talk to about it nods their head. And I don’t think they’re just being kind. I think they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, life is pretty hard. At least sometimes.’ So, I feel like I just have access to that part that we all really relate to, and luckily, I have a sense of humor about it. Otherwise, it’s really boring.

DEADLINE: Were there some scenes that really affected you?

SEGEL: Yeah, there was a scene where I couldn’t stop laughing. Jessica Williams makes me laugh really hard. There’s a scene where we wake up in bed after having slept together. And it is this frantic scene of us each getting dressed and realizing everyone is still downstairs. And there are things that are not in the show, probably for good reason, that made me laugh so f*cking hard. Jessica and I are both total weirdos and also totally committed, and it was one of the most fun days of my life.

Then I think the things that affected me most were these scenes with Lukita Maxwell, my daughter. That, to me, was the most important storyline in the thing. What I focused on, more than the therapy, more than Jimmy’s own grief that he was dealing with, is repairing this relationship with my daughter. Because that’s the ultimate betrayal that Jimmy has committed. It’s like the film Force Majeure.

DEADLINE: Where the dad bails on protecting his kids in an avalanche?

SEGEL: Yeah. As we were writing, I referenced it in a more dramatic way because it isn’t funny with Lukita, it’s like the thing happened and Jimmy ran away. You’re supposed to sacrifice yourself for your kid. He backed out of the room and let her take the hit. When you see sadness in Jimmy, there’s nothing quite as sad as guilt. And it’s a really interesting version of sadness, right? Because it’s also secret. It’s sad and a secret combined. Jimmy bailed when it was time to do the thing, the one thing you’re supposed to do.

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Read the digital edition of Deadline’s Emmy Comedy issue here.

DEADLINE: Brett Goldstein recently said how important it was that the actor playing Jimmy could bring likeability. Because in another actor’s hands, seeing him fail his daughter to that degree would’ve just ended it.

SEGEL: Well, I don’t know. I guess I like who I am… And I’ve had periods in my life where I bailed in ways that could potentially make somebody unlikeable. But there’s redemption on the other side by trying to make amends and trying to be better next time. So, I guess I have space in my heart for redemption. So that when I’m playing any of those moments, I don’t really view them as somebody becoming Darth Vader. It’s like,‘Oh, you’re going to have to fix that.’

DEADLINE: Jessica Williams says she improvised at times. Did you? And did Harrison Ford?

SEGEL: Yes. With Harrison Ford, there was a moment when I saw him register and was like, ‘Oh, we’re doing this now.’ And he was good at it. He’s really, really good at it. There was a whole potato run, where I end up eating these potatoes. [He said] “Do whatever you want with them. Boil them, bake them.” That was a riff that came out of his mouth. He is really smart, he’s really funny and he really understands acting.

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