While filming “Shrinking” Season 2, co-creator and star Jason Segel said he didn’t want to look at Brett Goldstein, who makes his debut in the series as the drunk driver who was involved in Tia’s fatal car accident.
Segel told TheWrap he tried to avoid contact with the “Ted Lasso” Emmy winner (and fellow “Shrinking” co-creator) while on set because his character is the root cause of “a lot of Jimmy’s pain.”
“He’s this guy who’s coming back into Jimmy’s life in the most painful way possible,” said Segel, who stars as Jimmy Laird, a therapist who is navigating the loss of his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden).
“It was tender up until the moment we had to walk onto set together,” he added of his working relationship with Goldstein. “I didn’t want to look at the guy because I wanted it to feel that way.” Segel noted that he didn’t go into method acting for the project, but he still maintained Jimmy’s disposition when cameras were down.
“I don’t carry it around with me, but this character that Brett was playing is the cause of a lot of Jimmy’s pain, and I just didn’t really want to look at him in the face,” he explained.
Goldstein, making his official “Shrinking” on-screen debut in Season 2 Wednesday, plays Louis — or as Jimmy calls him, “Double D” (short for “drunk driver”). The character appears halfway through the 30-minute episode in a flashback of Tia’s car accident. At first, audiences can only see Goldstein’s silhouette as police shove him into the back of a squad car, but at the end of the episode, it cuts back to that devastating night to reveal the “Ted Lasso” fan-favorite in the role.
Originally, the plot and Goldstein’s part was going to play out differently, and Louis — who appears to be around the same age as Jimmy — was going to be younger.
“He was written a little younger before, and it was just a little bit different than Brett. Brett and I are about the same age where we have a similar sensibility, and it just felt really exciting to play these scenes with him,” shared Segel, who pitched and vouched for Goldstein to be on the show.
“I think we always knew Brett would do something in the show. To be honest, the plan was for a lighter, kind of maybe comedic arc of a few episodes, and when that part came along, he was written a little bit differently than Brett,” he added. “I want to be clear, I don’t take credit for Brett playing that part. I just said out loud what I think everybody in the room knew in their gut, was that Brett should play that part.”
As “Shrinking” boss Bill Lawrence told TheWrap, Season 2 is all about forgiveness — and that may require some participation from everyone, including Jimmy.
“[Louis is] a formidable part of the season. It’s Jimmy’s past coming back to haunt him and having to reckon with what he considers probably the thing that destroyed his life,” Lawrence said. “I wanted to do that with somebody who felt like a reflection of Jimmy. That when these two guys were standing face to face, they were looking at themselves. That was the picture that I thought was important, and I feel that way about Brett.”
The first two episodes of “Shrinking” Season 2 are now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes air every Wednesday through Dec. 25.
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