‘Shrinking’ Boss Reveals What It’s Like Writing Lines for Harrison Ford

When Bill Lawrence and his Shrinking co-creators were writing the show’s second season, they knew that casting the part of Louis — the drunk driver who killed the wife of Jason Segel’s Jimmy — was going to be extremely difficult. Segel suggested tapping Brett Goldstein, but Lawrence was resistant. “I kept thinking, ‘He’s known as [Ted Lasso’s] Roy Kent, and he’s too gruff,’ ” says the showrunner. He eventually agreed to let Goldstein take on the role on one condition: that he shave his signature facial hair to make the character, a pivotal element of the season-two plotline, more vulnerable. “I called Brett up
and said, ‘If you think you can do this, you should, but if you screw it up, you’re going to ruin the show and it’s going to get canceled,’ ” Lawrence recalls with a laugh. “In the end I thought he just killed it, and I was so proud of him, and now I’m annoyed that his casting wasn’t my idea.”

Shrinking did not get canceled; it received nine Emmy nominations, including its first for outstanding comedy series. Here, the perennially busy showrunner took a break from working on the third season (and the development of the Scrubs reboot, and the fourth season of Ted Lasso, and the development of an upcoming untitled HBO series) to break down what made a difference on their sophomore effort. 

Harrison Ford got his first Emmy nomination for this season; do you feel like you learned anything about how to write for him from the first season?

One of the cheat sheets to successful streaming television is, at least for me, working with actors with whom I’ve worked before. Like Jason or my wife [Christa Miller]. We didn’t know Harrison personally, so we originally wrote him as a very serious guy. As he grew to trust us, we realized he was game for anything, and that freed us up to write stuff for him that we normally wouldn’t. I also noticed how vulnerable and emotional he was, that he made stuff sad even when we didn’t put that in the script. Like the Thanksgiving dinner speech in the season-two finale; he could have delivered that matter-of-fact, and it would have worked. We shot everyone’s reactions to him simultaneously, and a lot of those emotional reactions were real. It was a super poignant moment — and I’m a hard, cynical dude, so I got surprised by it. 

How hard was it, logistically, to pull together that scene — with your entire cast in one room at the same time?

It can be self-indulgent to direct your own show, but one of the reasons I directed that one is I knew I was the only one who was allowed to ask certain things of the cast for that. It was a giant room of thespians, but the whole scene was in service to Harrison’s speech. And it’s a nightmare for a crew to be like, “We’re going to shoot eight pages at one location and there are 17 actors.” But it was worth it. 

This season has a lot of guest stars. Do you write your ideal actors into the script?

We’ll often write one draft where the character isn’t too specific, and then we’ll go to Candice Bergen or Damon Wayans — the second they say yes, even before the ink is dry, we’ll do a pass for their voice. But I also wrestle with some of the casting, like maybe I shouldn’t have the guy who played the janitor on Scrubs be on Shrinking, or my wife on Shrinking, or now I have Jamie Tartt from Ted Lasso [Phil Dunster] as one of the male leads on the new Steve Carell show. But also, if you think someone is talented and you like spending time with them, then you would be silly not to keep hiring them. 

Can you envision what the endgame of the show will be?

The way we approach Shrinking is that we know Jason’s character’s journey, which is grief, forgiveness and moving forward. That’s a three-season tale. But if you’re asking me, “What are the next three seasons going to be?” Well, they’re therapists, and just because you’ve gotten over the biggest stick in the spokes of your life doesn’t mean there’s no more pathos. We intentionally put these people in a world that brings all of that to their doorstep, so there’s always more story to tell. We definitely put some Easter eggs into the third season that will allow people to see what’s coming.