Jason Segel Felt Reuniting with Cobie Smulders on ‘Shrinking’ Was ‘Really Meaningful’
Season 2 of “Shrinking” may be over, but with a renewal in place for Season 3 and a few loose threads still in need of tying up, fans can hardly wait for more. One plot line people are particularly clamoring for is to see Jason Segel’s therapist Jimmy court divorced mom Sofi, who appeared briefly in Episode 10 of this last season and was played by Segel’s former “How I Met Your Mother” co-star Cobie Smulders. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Segel reflected on getting to share the screen once again with Smulders and the impact their past relationship had on giving life to the scene.
“On ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ we were rarely combined, and so it felt really cool,” said Segel. “And I think the other thing — I was actually just talking about this today — I think when I watched that scene, I feel like a weight to it that goes beyond two people meeting for the first time, which I think is what feels interesting about it, what feels electric about it. There was something really meaningful.”
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The part of Sofi wasn’t written for Smulders and there’s no inclination as to whether her casting means the character will reappear in Season 3, but based on the sparks shared between the two characters, it expecting her to make a comeback feels like a pretty safe bet. Especially after Segel and Smulders displayed such chemistry with one another, a fact Segel attributes to their shared history working and growing on “How I Met Your Mother.”
“When we made that show, Cobie and I were the youngest, and so we knew each other from basically our early 20s to our early 30s,” Segel said to THR. “These are really formative years when you’re becoming who you are and getting things wrong and getting them right and figuring out life, and to be standing across from each other 10 years later, looking at each other like, ‘Hey, we’re both still here, and look at us all grown up.’ I think you can feel that weight to the scenes like this look of recognition between the two characters that I think feels really good for what the storyline is supposed to be.”
Smulders wasn’t the only one Segel felt he connected with on “Shrinking” despite sharing minimal screen time. Acting opposite Brett Goldstein — who in addition to playing Louis, the man responsible for killing Jimmy’s wife in a car accident, also serves as co-creator along with Segel and Bill Lawrence — Segel felt a natural comfort with his co-star, particularly in the last scene of the season, which sees both characters reach out for support after a long time spent avoiding one another.
“I’m not that hippie-dippie as an actor, but it was just a quiet night, and it was a quiet scene, and they intentionally set the cameras up, even for our close-ups, they were set up on the other side of the tracks [with a long lens],” said Segel. “It just felt like Brett and I sitting on a bench, talking to each other. It felt tender and intimate and just how it was supposed to be.”
“Shrinking” Season 2 is now available to stream in its entirety on Apple TV+.
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