During a conversation with NPR’s Linda Holmes at The 92nd St. Y, actors Brett Goldstein and Jason Segel dive into the creative process that goes into producing the kind of compelling and engaging television that resonates with audiences around the globe, and will share behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the second season of the hit TV Show Shrinking.
Jason Segel: A gifted comic actor with a knack for playing neurotic or easily agitated types, Jason Segel first caught the attention of television audiences as a unabashedly lovelorn high schooler in Judd Apatow’s cult series “Freaks and Geeks” (NBC, 1999-2000). He soon became a regular member of Apatow’s repertory company for films and television, appearing in memorable supporting roles in the short-lived “Undeclared” (Fox, 2001-02) and the blockbuster hit “Knocked Up” (2007), before graduating to a lead in the 2008 comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which he also wrote. Segel also scored on television as the eccentric lawyer-in-trainer Marshall Eriksen on the comedy “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS, 2005-2014), a popular sitcom that ran for nine seasons. During his time on the show, Segel was able to star in movies, co-starring with Paul Rudd in “I Love You, Man” (2009), Jack Black in “Gulliver’s Travels” (2010), Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher” (2011) and Ed Helms in “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” (2011). By the time he co-wrote and co-starred in his dream project “The Muppets” (2011), Segel had himself well-positioned as a multifaceted threat capable of translating his talents into a wide array of projects.
Brett Goldstein: Brett attended school in Sutton, Surrey before reading Film Studies at Warwick University. At 22, Brett went to New York to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. Aside from performing, he began to write his own plays and take them to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but ultimately decided that comedy was less depressing. In 2006, began his stand-up career with a show entitled ‘Brett Goldstein Grew Up in a Strip Club’. He began appearing to a wider audience in a variety of television sitcoms, including ‘Derek’, ‘Uncle’, ‘Drifters’ and the Emmy award winning “Hoff The Record”. In 2015, he wrote and starred in the title role of ‘SuperBob’, a superhero romantic comedy set in Peckham, directed by his old classmate from Sutton, Jon Drever. Brett has become an award-winning actor, writer and stand-up, and over time has made three more hours of stand-up that premiered in Edinburgh and toured the UK and overseas: ‘Brett Goldstein Contains Scenes Of An Adult Nature’, ‘Brett Goldstein: Burning Man’, and ‘Brett Goldstein: What Is Love Baby Don’t Hurt Me’.
