Spoilers for Shrinking Season 2’s first episode are ahead! If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the series with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Shrinking is one of the best shows on Apple TV+ in part because of the stark juxtaposition between Jason Segel’s rule-bending therapist Jimmy and his boss, Harrison Ford’s grumpy and rule-following therapist Paul. These two going back and forth about their profession and lives is endlessly entertaining, and in Season 2 of the comedy, Luke Tennie got to witness it all first-hand as his character Sean went from seeing Jimmy as his therapist to Paul.
For some context, in the first episode of Shrinking’s second season, Jimmy takes Jimmy-ing (his meddling and unethical form of therapy) a bit too far, with Sean specifically, and he’s starting to use his patients as a way to try and heal himself. So, Paul tells him he can’t see Sean as a patient anymore. That leads to Harrison Ford’s character taking on Tennie’s as a client, and it makes for a new and fun dynamic on the show.
So, when I had the opportunity to interview the Shrinking cast, I asked Luke Tennie about his character’s new change in therapists as well as the differences between working with the guys who play them, Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. In response, the Sean actor told me:
The difference between working with Jason and Harrison is – it's like just two masters of the same craft who have completely different approaches.
If you take one look at Segel and Ford’s backgrounds, that feels abundantly clear, because their career trajectories are opposites. The How I Met Your Mother star is known as a funny man, and he’s made a career out of starring in humorous projects like the aforementioned sitcom and movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets. Meanwhile, the Star Wars actor is an icon because of his work in blockbusters and dramas like Indiana Jones and Blade Runner.
Bringing them together makes for an entertaining odd-couple pairing on screen, and a fun on-set experience too, because they’re so different.
The Sean actor broke down why with me too, saying the following about the 1923 actor:
Harrison's kind of like…it's kind of like working with a carpenter. He's got the blueprints, you know? And you move through bit by bit, and we have so much fun after we build the walls. Then we do the interior decoration.
Well, Harrison Ford was once a carpenter, so that metaphor feels very fitting. It also tells us that he and Tennie worked together to build the foundation of a scene that they could then have a lot of fun in.
When it comes to Jason Segel, the Safety performer said it’s more like a brotherly relationship, and the ways in which the Freaks and Geeks actor works are a bit more internalized, as he explained:
With Jason, I kind of feel like he'll make anyone look incredible, but the way he does it is incredibly specific, and it's like, it's behind this door that says ‘Authorized Personnel Only.’ Like, I know he's doing a lot of stuff in his head to make it look as easy as it's looking, but I don't know what he doing. So it's kind of like being ushered around by this warm, loving elder brother.
Like Jimmy and Paul, Segel and Ford’s approaches to acting sound totally different. However, they work great together. Luke Tennie confirmed that as he told me just how much he loves collaborating with both actors and how “inspired” he was by the switch-up in his character’s story.
Now, it’ll be interesting to see how Paul helps Sean, and in what ways Jimmy impacts their partnership. I’m sure it’ll be silly and chaotic, as Shrinking tends to be. However, I’m also certain Luke Tennie’s character will learn valuable lessons from both men this season, just like the actor has from Segel and Ford.
To see these three men on screen together, and to watch Sean’s sessions with Paul, you can catch new episodes of Shrinking as they air on the 2024 TV schedule every Wednesday on Apple TV+.
