“I’m so grateful to Apple; For whatever reason, they haven’t realized that I just do the show Scrubs over and over,” joked Shrinking co-creator, writer, and executive producer Bill Lawrence. The series stars co-creator Jason Siegel as a therapist coping with the death of his wife, who learns the hard way that in order to help somebody else, you have to first help yourself. During a TCA press conference, the creative team was joined by the cast, minus screen legend Harrison Ford, to talk about the ten-part series, which begins streaming on Friday, January 27th, on Apple TV+.
(Apple TV+)
“Rock bottom is an interesting thing because it seems like it's a sad place, but it's actually very hopeful because there's no place to go but up,” revealed Jason Segel about the optimistic tone of Shrinking. “Watching people scramble in the dark to try to pull themselves out of a hole I think is an inherently-funny thing. Grown-ups desperate is really funny.” In addition to co-creating the series and executive producing, Jason Segel stars as the main character, Jimmy. Having come up in the world of comedy and making a name for himself with the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason is no stranger to baring all for the camera. Still, Shrinking gave him the opportunity to tap into a wider range of emotions than he was able to display in a film like The Muppets. “What does it look like if someone is really grieving something that they're never going to get back?… Let's get really honest about what life actually feels like when nobody's looking.”
Christa Miller is a familiar face to fans of Bill Lawrence shows, having been in Scrubs and Cougar Town (she’s Bill’s wife in real life). “Because Brett [Goldstein] and Jason were writing too, they pushed Bill out of the mean, snarky wife,” Christa joked about her character Liz, who is much more tender than Jordan Sullivan and Ellie Torres. “To feel like you're doing something different was really fun and exciting. And at the end of the day, I could never go right to sleep, which is good because Harrison [Ford] always has a little shot of tequila for me at the end of the day.” The screen legend who portrayed Han Solo and Indiana Jones is a neighbor of Bill and Christa, which is how she got her evening nightcap. That geographical closeness also helped with reshoots, with many of Harrison Ford’s redone scenes filmed in their backyard. On the theme of neighbors, Liz is Jimmy’s caring and concerned neighbor as he grieves the loss of his wife in ways that would go against the rules of any HOA.
“I was freaking out the entire time,” gushed Lukita Maxwell, who plays Jimmy’s daughter Alice. She was very aware of the A-list world she stepped into when she arrived on set. “I tried to keep my cool. I mean, I’m trying to keep my cool now. We’re working with legends… I just feel so grateful to have such amazing examples to look up to every day on set and I’m inspired every day when I work.”
Jimmy’s newest client is Sean, a young man with uncontrollable anger. “I’m glad I had [Lukita] because [she’s] one of the only people in this cast who’s newer like me, and we had a lot of scenes together,” Luke Tennie said about the experience of being thrown into this world. The two young actors bonded over their shared feelings of imposter syndrome. “It’s one of those shows that challenges the viewers. It checks all the boxes. Frankly, I’m just really, really glad to be here.”
It wasn’t just the youngest cast members who were in awe of working on Shrinking. “I never worked with this many straight people in my life,” joked Michael Urie, who made a name for himself on ABC’s Ugly Betty and plays another one of Jimmy’s patients, the happy-go-lucky Brian. “I get to go and be on this playground with these incredible other characters, these amazing artists. I couldn’t have been more excited. And didn't know anybody either. They took a gamble on me. I felt like I had a bit of imposter syndrome showing up with these heavies and this amazing material that every episode we got to dive into and layer away.”
“I signed on to play the character of Gaby because the gentlemen that I met with said that, ‘We only have the first couple of episodes written and we want to figure her out around you,’ which especially as a black actress that’s six feet tall, that’s like a gift,” revealed Jessica Williams, who plays Gabby Evans. “That doesn’t happen all the time. And so I kind of signed on trusting Jason, [Bill, Brett, and Neil Goldman], who I thought was lovely. And then I just got to improvise on set a lot, and I found really quickly between Christa, Harrison, Michael, Luke, Lukita, and Jason, that everyone was really open for volleying the ball back and forth, and I think you get to see a lot of Gaby as we keep going and she really comes into full-bloom quickly. That was the result of me trusting and them trusting me to be the Mayor of Gabytown.”
“We wanted to write a show about grief because right now the world's a little bit of a dumpster fire,” explained Bill Lawrence, wrapping up the show’s intentions. “You can't meet anybody that isn't at least two or three degrees separated from some sad [stuff] going on in their life. And my family kind of approaches that with humor and comedy. We need to get actors and actresses and writers that could make that stuff authentic so that people can veer from moments of big emotional drama into hopefully moments that are silly and fun.”
Go through the roller coaster of emotions with Shrinking, premiering Friday, January 27th on Apple TV+.