The new Apple TV+ series Shrinking is a comedy…about grief.
Jason Segel plays a dad grieving the loss of his wife in show, which is out Friday. Grief might not be the first thing you think of when you think comedy, but Segel tells ABC Audio “those are the kinds of weighty issues that should be explored through comedy.”
“I really don’t want to see a drama about grief. I know what I’m going to get,” he explains. “I’ve just always felt like comedy was a great way into exploring weightier issues.”
Ted Lasso star and writer Brett Goldstein co-created the series and adds that grief is a great, universal, jumping off point.
“I think it’s something that everyone has experienced or is close to,” he shares.
That’s what makes the show so relevant and, although Goldstein didn’t plan it that way, he can understand how it happened.
“Collectively as the world we’ve experienced the trauma of COVID and we’re all trying to come out of that, I can see how this is reflective of the time. And I guess it’s all subconscious in what you’re choosing to create,” he says.
Segel’s character is also psychiatrist who learns how to use his loss to help others, a process he describes a “really clumsy and clunky, but it comes from such love.”
Segel, in the series, shares a practice with two other shrinks, played by Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams. So what was it like working with Ford?
“It’s a dream,” Segel says, adding that Ford was a “consummate professional.”
“And then also, like, selfishly, it is some affirmation that you must be doing okay. Like all of a sudden you’re sitting across from Harrison Ford and you’re like, Oh, I must be doing okay,” he adds.
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