“Shrinking” Star & Producer Jason Segel on Season 3’s Love Letter to Los Angeles
The third season of the acclaimed, hugely popular comedy-drama series Shrinking hits differently. Days before filming was due to start in January 2025, wildfires swept through Altadena and Pasadena, the Los Angeles communities where the show is shot. Not only were sets lost, but the blazes turned the lives of local cast and crew upside down, with some losing their homes and everything they owned.
Executive producer, co-creator, and star Jason Segel was one of those who would not let disaster derail the show that deals with loss, tragedy, and seemingly insurmountable challenges that life can throw your way. Segel, who lives in Pasadena, witnessed the disaster bring Los Angeles’ creative communities, still suffering the effects of the strikes and the pandemic, and the communities that support them, growing closer than ever.
The comedian, known for Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets, plays Jimmy, a grieving therapist who ignores his training and tells his clients what he really thinks, much to the chagrin of his boss, played by Oscar-nominee and Hollywood legend, Harrison Ford. The third season of Shrinking premieres on Apple TV on Wednesday, January 28.
Here Segel reveals why the show did whatever it took to keep production in Pasadena, how the fires impacted filming, and the importance of Hollywood’s heritage backlots.
People often think of LA as a single, stereotypical character, but Shrinking highlights communities that frequently get overlooked. Why is that really important to the show?
We chose Pasadena specifically because it’s a little bit out of Los Angeles proper, and it takes away whatever association Los Angeles has with any industry, because once you pass the 5 Freeway, you’re in a different zone. I live in Pasadena, and I love it. It’s a love letter to where I live. It’s calm and friendly here, and socio-economically, between here and Altadena and the surrounding areas, you’ve got all different walks of life. Right as we were starting season three, the fires rolled through Altadena. We had castmates lose their houses, so a couple of us got close. Some of our sets were lost, and the community that had welcomed us for years burned down. For us, it was really important to be good members of our community and to make sure we got out there and shot as much on location as we could, to whatever degree that was helpful. I love my city.
With the damaged sets, how did you work with that?
We held all the exterior filming until we could shoot again, so for the first few months, we only shot the interiors of episodes, and then we went back and redid all the exteriors. We shot half of the episodes, and then went back and shot them all. It was a really strange experience. For me, and this is so unique, but it requires you to stay the same weight, which is not my strong suit. You’re second-guessing every hamburger. It was important to us, even though it might have been inconvenient, that we do all that. Like I say, our cast and crew are a family. When the Emmy nominations came out, and Shrinking‘s sound department was nominated for an award, the cheer for them was as big as the cheer for Harrison Ford getting his. I think that says it all.
Being a show about dealing with life and tragedy, did that impact Shrinking’s third season in a meta way?
When we did season one, Covid had just happened, and there was a similar feeling in Los Angeles, after the fires. It felt like something totally beyond your control had swept through, and people were going through grief. Our show embodies that in the idea of my character’s wife dying in a drunk-driving accident. It’s no fault of their own. They are hit and taken from you, and life changes. Those are examples that sometimes life throws a thing at you, and all of a sudden, everything is different, so the tone of it was very much in the fabric of our show, like, “Okay, what do we do?” You turn to your friends, and you say, “Oh, my God, this happened. This sucks. I’m feeling this way. What do I do now?” and your friends say, “We do it together.” That’s what our show is all about.
Shrinking is an excellent example of how much production contributes to the local economy and community, especially at a time when many businesses were suffering. There have been five years in LA where it has been punch after punch, and almost every company in LA is connected to the industry, doing well.
I’m shooting a movie here this month (January) that I wrote. As much as we can do here, I’m going to do. It means a lot.
It was impossible not to be touched by the video from the last day of shooting this season, where Harrison was almost in tears talking to the crew.
I am mercifully not on the internet, so I don’t know the specifics of the video; this is actually the first time I’m hearing of it. What I will say is that Harrison has been doing this longer than I have, and I’ve been doing it for a weirdly long time now. I started when I was 18, and I’m suddenly 45, so it has really crept up on me, but Harrison and I will both say, honestly, that there hasn’t been a better job. When Harrison says it, I’m like, “You know you were Indiana Jones, right?” I can’t quite believe him, but he seems to really mean it. The difference is that when you are Indiana Jones, you are Indiana Jones, and it is a potentially, I can imagine, even an isolating experience. You have a lot of weight on your shoulders. On our show, everyone is coming in together, and it’s a team. That’s the simplest way to put it. I was watching the Oklahoma City Thunder play last night, and it’s like a hive mind. It’s this effortless thing where they’re making no-look passes, and they know their job is not to let their defender get by them, because it’ll burden their teammate to come over and help. I feel that way about our show. Everyone is coming in super prepared, with choices made, and to destroy scenes. That makes it a joy. Even hard days are a joy.
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As well as filming around Altadena and Pasadena, you film a lot on the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank. How important is it to utilize backlots here in LA and keep them active?
I can’t speak to that much, because I don’t know the literal importance of it, but I grew up in Los Angeles. I was seen in a high school play and asked to start acting at 16. The consequence was that I had to stop in my junior year of high school, quit the basketball team, and make other tough decisions. There’s a lot of pathos, but I remember going and sitting outside the Paramount Studios gates in my car and falling asleep. When I woke up, the sun was rising, and I had made my decision. I was like, “I want to do this job. I want to live my life working on these lots.” I feel the same way when I drive onto the Warner Bros. lot from all these movies that I loved, from that logo that would come up in front of them, “Oh my God. I’m at the place. I have a pass.” It’s not lost on me.
Featured image: Jason Segel in “Shrinking,” premiering January 28, 2026 on Apple TV.
