Shrinking is one of the best comedies on TV. The stellar cast of the Apple TV+ paid us a visit in our New York Comic Con 2024 studio to talk all things Season 2, currently airing new episodes on Wednesdays on the streamer. In the video interview above, we talk infusing even more drama into the tragicomedy series in the second season, the cast shares what Harrison Ford is really like on set (don’t let his interviews fool you!), making each other laugh during filming, and more.
Shrinking stars Jason Segel as grieving therapist Jimmy, who goes to bold, ethically questionable lengths to treat his patients as he also processes his grief after the unexpected death of his wife, Tia (Lilan Bowden). His coworkers, Paul (Ford) and Gaby (Jessica Williams), are part of his found family, as are best friend Brian (Michael Urie), married neighbors Liz (Christa Miller) and Derek (Ted McGinley), and patient Sean (Luke Tennie), who’s still living in his pool house. They all help Jimmy with his teen daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell), who’s also healing from losing her mother.
An unexpected part of Alice’s healing journey: Louis, the drunk driver responsible for her mom’s death. Louis is a primarily dramatic character played by Brett Goldstein, who’s also a co-creator of the series alongside Segel and his fellow Ted Lasso alum Bill Lawrence (Lawrence is also Miller’s husband). Goldstein jokes above that he felt bad coming to set for his scenes during Season 2 filming.
“I sort of just felt sorry for the crew, because I felt like every time it was one of my scenes, I felt like everyone was like, ‘Oh, god. Here we go. No laughs today, is it?’” he says with a laugh. “You know, it’s scary to do. But everyone’s f***ing amazing. It was all right. I was very looked after.”
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Shrinking‘s greatest strength is seamlessly blending comedy and drama. No other show on TV right now pulls off big laughs and crushing emotions in the same scene quite like this. The stars tell us what it’s like to switch gears on a dime for these funny and deep moments. Urie notes the great physical comedy between Segel and Williams early this season, a scene in which Gaby picks Jimmy up and tries to prove he’s wearing his “sexy” underwear in the hopes that they’d hook up again even after she ended things because she caught feelings and he didn’t.
“That scene is hilarious, but it’s also devastating,” Urie says above. “It’s really upsetting what’s going on. She’s getting a real kernel of something in that scene, and you laugh and then you realize, oh no, she’s really hurt.”
Urie has a recurring monologue coming up in later episodes that the whole cast praises.
“One of my favorite scenes — and Michael gets to do it twice — is his speech, which is a) hilarious, and b) has so much emotion going around it that he’s copping to this and vulnerable, and then it’s hysterical,” Miller raves. “When I first saw it, I had to rewind and watch it 50 times. And then he gets to do it again as funny as well.”
“My jaw was open watching you do that,” Williams gushes. McGinley adds that they didn’t get to watch everyone’s scenes during filming, but they read knew the funny moments in the scripts. “When you see it come to fruition, it kills you,” he explains.
The show’s beloved curmudgeon is Ford, who famously does not do a lot of press but when he does, he’s poking fun at the whole experience. Sadly, Ford didn’t join his costars at NYCC (during which Shrinking was renewed for Season 3), but the cast tried their hand at some Ford impressions with us. Urie adopted a gravely voice, but couldn’t commit to it for very long without laughing.
“He plays the ‘get off my lawn’ thing. That’s just what he does to disarm you,” Urie shares of their costar, slipping in and out of his Ford impression. “So when you see him in interviews and he’s doing that thing where he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s like, ‘I’ve never seen a Marvel movie,’ that’s to throw you off. But he really loves the work, and he loves that persona. That’s the disarming thing. But sometimes I watch the show and I’m like, how is his voice so low and so quiet, and yet a microphone picks it up?”
Segel’s response made the interview stop: “It is so low… Han Solo,” he quips. Queue the groans over the cheesy pun.
Don’t miss Shrinking‘s second season that’s sure to continue its streak of making you laugh and cry in the same scene, and get more behind-the-scenes details in the full video interview, above.
Shrinking, Wednesdays, Apple TV+
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