Shrinking Gives Grief Relief

Grief isn't your typical starting point for a comedy.

That's what appealed to Jason Segel about his Apple TV+ series, Shrinking. Segel's character, Jimmy, a therapist, is reeling from his wife's death while struggling to be there for his teenage daughter, Alice (Lukita Maxwell), his best friend, Brian (Michael Urie) and his patients.

"What if your therapist was privately having a nervous breakdown and you never knew it?" Segel asks. "There's a lot of tension in that idea."

When viewers first meet Jimmy, he seems to have hit rock bottom. "The only place to go is up," he points out. "Watching somebody crawl out of this pit, and scramble ... and realize he has helping hands reaching down from his friends, it's actually a very hopeful thing."

To the dismay of his mentor, Paul (Harrison Ford), and his fellow therapist, Gaby (Jessica Williams), Jimmy adopts an unconventional approach: he stops waiting for patients to reach their own solutions and bluntly gives them his opinions. He even invites one, Sean (Luke Tennie), to live in his guest house, to the annoyance of nosy neighbor Liz (Christa Miller) but not her blithe husband, Derek (Ted McGinley). The approach is jarring but intriguing. "There is some wish fulfillment that someone will just tell you what to do," Segel says.

When How I Met Your Mother ended in 2014, he sought dramatic roles, including AMC's Dispatches from Elsewhere and HBO's Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. "When Shrinking came along it felt like the synthesis of all these different skills that I'm trying to acquire," Segel says. "We all struggle through this life in different capacities. To me, Shrinking was the best version of comedy because it was honest. I felt lucky to be a surrogate [for viewers]."

Williams, who spent five seasons as a correspondent on The Daily Show, worked closely with costume designer Allyson B. Fanger on Gaby's vibrant look. "The creators and writers wanted Gaby to be a therapist that people would want to seek out. It was important that when she walks on the screen that she's quite bright," she says. "Her character can swing really hard into comedy, and she also has this emotional depth and inward strength. Comedically and dramatically, I got to stretch.

"One reason I wanted to do Shrinking was because of the way it explores grief in a way that felt authentic to me," Williams adds. "You take two steps forward, two steps back and every day is different."

The series, which has been renewed for a second season, marks the first time Ford has done a TV comedy. Working with him was "dreamy" and immensely validating, Segel says. "This business is hard, and you have real ups and downs, moments of wondering if you are doing okay," he adds. "It is impossible to be in the middle of a scene where you are hugging Harrison Ford and feel any way other than things are going just great."

Harrison Ford and Michael Urie were unable to participate on the date of the photo shoot.

The interviews for this story were completed before the start of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine issue #7, 2023, under the title, "Grief Relief."