‘Shrinking’ Star Christa Miller Talks Finale Cliffhanger and How Her Real Marriage Inspires Liz’s Arc
[This story contains spoilers for the finale of Apple’s Shrinking, “Closure.”]
For Shrinking viewers who want more of Liz and Derek, look no further than Christa Miller.
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The actress plays Liz in the Apple grief comedy, the helicopter neighbor with a big heart to Jason Segel’s grieving therapist Jimmy. She’s also the series’ music supervisor — yes, she orchestrated Harrison Ford’s memorable rendition of “Every Morning” — and she’s married to Shrinking co-creator Bill Lawrence, a relationship that has hilariously (see interview below) seeped into the show’s onscreen twosome of Liz and Derek, played by Ted McGinley.
“There’s a scene where my [retiring] husband tells me, ‘Look, I’ve been working my ass off, and you’re going to have to find a way to do something out of the house.’ And the writers make fun of my husband because they say to him, ‘Would you ever say that to Christa?’ And he would say, ‘No, I’d be too scared,'” Miller tells The Hollywood Reporter with a laugh, in one of several examples of where her real marriage to the prolific TV creator (Ted Lasso, Cougar Town, Spin City) and her character overlap.
Below, in a chat with THR, Miller candidly shares more insight into her Hollywood power marriage (“He would like to carry me around in a Baby Bjorn and just talk to me all day”), weighs in on what she can say about the literal cliffhanger ending to Shrinking season one and what’s in store for the already renewed season two, and reveals the show she begs her husband to revisit.
Shrinking co-creators Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein spoke to THR about how this show came about. Were you also involved in its origin story?
I’ve gone to the same psychiatrist for 21 years named Phil Stutz. Harrison Ford’s character is loosely based on a couple of different psychiatrists and therapists [including Phil]. Bill had wanted to write a story about Phil. He’s a very interesting guy. He has Parkinson’s [like the character played by Ford]. And Brett had wanted to write a story. And they decided to do it together.
Bill had been writing a couple of different things, and I had been wanting to get back to work — I had taken some time off to be with my kids. And I was like, “I want to do Brett’s show.” So, Bill was like, “Then I’m doing Brett’s show.” I was like, “I want to do Shrinking. I want to do Shrinking.” From like a year and a half before, I wanted to do Shrinking. I just responded to the material, it felt near and dear to my heart. And I’m glad that was the one I decided I wanted to do.
What about it really spoke to you?
I love that it wasn’t broad comedy. I loved that it was real and that I would have to be vulnerable and, actually, the character of Liz isn’t really close to who I am but is close in that I am a vulnerable person. I also felt like a lot of my friends during the pandemic called me because they knew that I see a psychiatrist and they said, “I want to see someone.” I hooked a lot of people up with wanting to talk about therapy. And I felt it was a bigger conversation and more people were talking about it, and I thought it was a great thing to put out there, of not having a stigma about it.
Was the character of Liz fully fleshed out by the time you got to it, or did you have some input?
Brett actually had written it with the name Christa, which just flattered me beyond belief, because I have a big crush on Brett and he is my boyfriend — Bill knows this so, don’t worry about it. Nothing to worry about there! (Laughing at the inside joke.) So, Brett knows me. But, I’m not a comedy writer in that way. They know me, and they could pull whatever. But I like doing different things, and what I love about acting is never knowing what is going to come up next. So I tend to not say. The one thing I do that Liz does is that I have this very nerdy hobby concerning rocks.
Tumbling rocks is your real hobby?
It’s my hobby, and so they put that into the show. (Laughs.) Let me tell you the story: So, Bill writes into the show that I say “rocks is a meditation for me.” I do all sorts of nerdy things; I sand them, I saw them with a saw. It’s too boring, really, to go into. So I’m doing rocks in the backyard, and Bill comes out to tell me something, and I said, “You wrote it into the show that it’s meditation, why are you bothering me when I’m doing rocks? Why?” I go, “This is a boundary. Do you see a boundary?” He goes, “OK, got it, got it.”
That sounds like a deleted scene from Shrinking. The hobby was so specific, I should have guessed it came from somewhere close.
It is specific! It’s so specifically nerdy. And also, none of my kids want to hike with me in Malibu, where we can find agates. Agates are the rocks that I like, and my kids are like, “Nope because that is just lookin’ for agates.” Anyone who I take who doesn’t care about rocks, they then become addicted. All of a sudden, three hours would go by and you would be like, “Oh my God, I found this agate.” Because they’re like treasures to find.
Based on our conversation and this quote you previously told us about Bill for a Hollywood power couples feature, how much of your onscreen marriage with Derek (played by Ted McGinley) on Shrinking is inspired by your marriage to Bill? (The quote reads, “At work, Bill is this really dynamic, talented guy. Whatever he says, he has my rapt attention. But at home, I’ve never met anyone as dumb as Bill. I’ll come in, and it’ll be really hot, and I’m like, ‘Bill, why don’t you have the air conditioner on?’ Then I realize he doesn’t know how to work the air conditioner.“)
I remember that shoot! That was a really cute picture. (Laughing at the quote.) Well, I do like my solitude, in general, as a person. I have three loud children and a talkative husband, I don’t get it very often. But Bill (laughing), his joke in the writers room… there’s a scene, and I forget what episode it’s in, where my [retiring] husband tells me, “Look, I’ve been working my ass off, and you’re going to have to find a way to do something out of the house.” And the writers make fun of my husband because they say to him, “Would you ever say that to Christa?” And he would say, “No, I’d be too scared.” (Laughing.)
So this Shrinking marriage is wish-fulfillment for him.
Right now, I’m doing renovation on our house, and I’m building him an office that is outside our house. In the pandemic, I knew that it was going to be problematic [with Bill working from home]. Because all of my kids were home and Bill really just likes to follow me around. He will admit — I’m not just saying this — he would like to carry me around in a Baby Bjorn and just talk to me all day. So I turned our downstairs guest room into a pied-à-terre with a desk, and I said, “You need to be here 9-5 p.m. working, and then we’ll coordinate.” Or else he would sit in my office with me chatting all day — and I can’t have it. We’re opposite in that way, but we complement each other because of it. He makes me go out, and I make him not go to the opening of a letter.
Is there some stuff totally ripped from you guys, or are you more of a loose inspiration?
I feel like that happened more in other shows that Bill used to take ridiculous things I’d say when being funny and exaggerate them. But in this show, I feel like he’s just taking my vulnerable, softer side that people haven’t seen and the way that I am with my children. I would always come into Scrubs — and my character is such a broad comedy monster. Then I would bring my kids and be so cuddly and people would look at me like I was from Mars (laughs), they didn’t understand. And this show I feel it’s definitely a labor of love. Every castmember and every crew member, it’s like you walk onto the set and everyone is trying to just do the best work. It’s about grief, and it’s very sensitive. I drive onto set, and my heart is just open.
You’ve worked with your husband before. How is the experience of doing Shrinking different, especially in the streaming era and at Apple compared to your broadcast experiences with shows like Cougar Town, Scrubs and the Drew Carey Show?
Well, when we were doing Shrinking, a lot of the time Bill was shooting Bad Monkey, his Apple show with Vince Vaughn, so he would be a face on an iPad. And we miss him on set. Because when Bill is on set, like I’ve said before, he is dynamic and funny, and he really streamlines the process. But Neil Goldman, who used to work on Scrubs, and the writers were fantastic, and I’m very close to Neil. But it’s a different sensibility. And working with Jason [Segel] was a treasure — I’m so close to him, you learn so much — and with Harrison [Ford]. Everyone is on their A-game. It was such an interesting, deep, funny show to do. And scary. I felt it even from when we did the table read in front of all the Apple and Warner Bros. people. It was in a big set, packed with people. And I’m sitting next to Harrison Ford, and the table read was incredible, and my heart was in my throat. I thought, “How am I going to do this show? Everyone’s great.” It’s just how I feel every day.
What do you attribute that feeling to?
Bill definitely sets the tone. Any show I’ve worked on with Bill, down from cast and crew, everybody, Bill has a no asshole policy. I know other people like to go along with that and say that, but Bill really has it. And a lot of the crew I’ve worked with for many, many years. Bill has people on the crew that he works with all the time; the AD is Ben Weiss, who I worked with on Cougar Town, who worked with Courteney [Cox] on Friends. I feel very safe on his set.
And I think Bill sets up a situation, and Jason does this as well, where they say to try things that are going to embarrass you, and we don’t have to use it. Once you do that a few times and you know that nothing bad will happen if you try something and it doesn’t work, you can lay your heart out. It definitely feels different for me because it’s not a broad comedy, and so I am trying different things. I’m a tennis player, and when I play tennis with people much better than I am, I surprise myself. And playing with all those people on the cast has upped my game.
You and Jessica Williams have great chemistry as Liz and Gaby. It looks like you guys are having too much fun.
We are having too much fun. I’m obsessed with her. In real life, I also want to be best friends. I torment her, and every time I see her she’s like, “Don’t start with your shit.” I think they probably wrote it in the show because I’m obsessed with her. In the show, I just want to be her.
Have you asked her to do rocks with you in real life?
She came over here, we had a bar night, which are the most fun.
What is a bar night?
We have a proper bar, it’s navy blue lacquer. It’s like an English bar. We have friends over from all walks of life; you drink, and there’s appetizers. And then at the end, we have people sing, and the craziest people will sing. You’ll have like Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on the drums. Harrison [Ford] and Calista [Flockhart] are our neighbors, they walk down the street. It’s really fun. And Jessica came over, and we were having a really fun bar night, and I was like, “Do you want to see my office and all my fun photographs?” Because I’m a photographer. I had to show her like show-and-tell, like I was 5 years old.
Speaking of Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams — and especially because you are also the music supervisor on Shrinking — are you surprised by the response to Harrison singing Sugar Ray’s 1999 song “Every Morning” in their car ride?
No. I loved it. I had asked Jessica for songs that she had liked and that she knows every word to, and that song was one of them, and I thought, “Harrison will know that.” I don’t ask people about the music, mind you. And I hate watching myself — I have to watch myself in the un-color-corrected just terrible cuts because I have to do the music — and the first time I saw it even on a long cut that wasn’t done right I was like, “This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The relationship between Liz and Gaby speaks to conversations around race, in a specific and casual kind of way, where she is constantly calling Liz out.
I feel like the way that it’s done sensitively is that I’m obsessed with her so much that she can call me out and tease me about it, about white privilege or anything like that. And then I admit it, laugh about it and want to change it because I want to be her, and I want to be her best friend. I think it’s done in a nice way because Liz isn’t egregious about it.
What does your therapist think about the show?
Dr Stutz? He’s like, “I can retire now.” Jonah Hill made a documentary about him on Netflix called Stutz. So he said, between the documentary and having Harrison Ford play him, he feels he can retire.
The Shrinking finale shows how everyone evolves and sets the entire ensemble on hopeful paths for season two. But then Jimmy’s client (Heidi Gardner), who he crossed ethical therapy lines with, pushes her abusive husband off a cliff to end the season. That literal cliffhanger seems likely to mess with Jimmy’s happy ending. How in the know are you about the plan?
I kind of know what direction they want to take it next year, but I’m not consulted. Everyone was consulted about things they want to explore. I really love exploring my vulnerability. I feel like the second I get on [set] with Jason, I want to burst into tears I love him so much, and I’m hooked in. I kind of know a little where they want to go, and I think it’s great. I think there are interesting things for everyone to do, and I think they really work on making sure every single person — and it’s a big cast — has an interesting story. I definitely want to see more. I love this show. I don’t want to be self-congratulatory, because I don’t write the show. But I love the show.
First of all, that last shot was such a beautiful shot, of her pushing her husband off the cliff. It was sunset. And I love being able to clear David Bowie’s “Modern Love.” Although Harrison said to me at the wedding, “Christa, you couldn’t have chosen something more slow?” I said, “No, this works because we have the scene at the end” (laughing).
Would you say that ending is meant to throw a wrench in everything?
I think you’ll have to see!
You also wore two hats previously for Scrubs and Cougar Town. What did you learn from acting and doing the music on those shows that you apply now?
We had the script for about 10 months before we shot Shrinking, so I was super prepared and really clear on what I wanted for the tone. I was able to bank the music, so the editors only choose from my music, and then I don’t run into any problems where people are putting in things they like. It’s much easier to be the music supervisor on a show that I’m in because during the week I’m listening to music and reading the script and thinking, “This will work here.” And it also helps my work on the flip side with acting, because I can listen to all that music when I’m doing it, and it kind of melds together.
It’s not very common that the music supervisor is a part of the cast, right?
No (laughs), it isn’t. Also, I have a partner, Tony Von Pervieux. He helps me clear everything and do the music work. On Bill’s show Bad Monkey, he’s taking the lead. That kind of music is more his expertise so I’ll help, but he’s taking the lead. On Shrinking, he lets me take the lead and will help if I need help. And he does all the business side so I don’t have to do that kind of time suck work because it would be hard when I was shooting.
Your husband joked to THR he was happy about the nepo baby conversation so now your daughter Charlotte Lawrence’s song could be used in Shrinking. What’s it like bringing more of your family into Shrinking?
It’s really funny, because there’s a song of hers that I really love, and I think it’s going to be a big hit, called “Body Bag,” and I’ve loved it from the beginning. I’m very careful about using her music in the show. And I thought, “Let’s put her in this small placement where Alice [played by Lukita Maxwell] is listening to music from her headphones [in episode nine] from a new cool artist.” And then the editor put it in a much bigger placement when she awkwardly went to kiss Sean [played by Luke Tennie]. So I feel devoid of responsibility. But I would have the entire score be Charlotte Lawrence music, if it were up to me!
You’re also doing the music for Ted Lasso, which just released its third season. I imagine there’s some overlap with scheduling?
Yeah, but as the show goes on, Jason Sudeikis really does a lot of the music. He really is very passionate about the music that goes into it. I help and do playlists, but I would say that Jason and my partner Tony do the bulk of it. Sometimes they’ll find scenes where I’ll help with a few songs, and I’ll put in the music or suggestions, but Jason is really passionate about music as well.
Since there’s a lot of conversation around this being possibly the final season, did you approach the music any differently with Ted Lasso?
No. That’s all I can say. Christa is uncharacteristically quiet!
What’s it like to be in this relationship where you guys are secret-keepers and, bringing it full circle to Shrinking, are you two able to separate work, or does it all blur together?
Listen, in general, I try not to gossip, and I try not to say anything. I knew about Ted McGinley, who plays my husband Derek. He was a recurring role [for season one], and I knew from last year that he was going to be [upped to] a series regular this year if we got picked up. And Bill’s like, “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything.” Of course, we’re out at a party when we hadn’t even been picked up yet [for season two], and Bill blurted it out. I was like, “Well, I wanted to say it!”
Bill also shared with THR that Shrinking was a three-season pitch. Do you hope it goes on for a long time?
Oh, I’m going to grind on Bill. If people still like it, I’m going to grind on him so it goes longer. Maybe if I’m super nice to him and let him hang out in my office and talk to me all day — but I just don’t know if I can do that. But maybe for this show, I can.
Any past projects of yours you would like to revisit?
All of us at Scrubs beg Bill for the Scrubs movie. And we’ll bring Brendan Fraser back to life; we all want the Scrubs movie. I’m hoping. We torture Bill. All those guys are my very close friends, so every night that we see Bill — at bar night, we talked about it. And Bill’s like, “Can we have one moment that we don’t talk about it?” And we’re like, “No.” I think he might do it, it’s just that he’s so busy right now.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
The first season of Shrinking is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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