Minor spoilers for Shrinking Season 2 are ahead. If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the series with an Apple TV+ subscription and then catch new episodes on the streamer every Wednesday.
When I picture Brett Goldstein, I see him with a beard. So, you can imagine that it was a bit jarring when Season 2 of Shrinking premiered on the 2024 TV schedule and I saw him clean-shaven. Well, it was jarring for the actor too, as he recently recalled the story behind being told to shave his facial hair in a dramatic and hilarious way.
In the midst of playing a primary role in the Ted Lasso cast as Roy Kent, Goldstein co-created another series for Apple TV+ called Shrinking with Bill Lawrence. The two had worked together on the soccer comedy, and then teamed up again with Jason Segel to make this series about therapists. In Season 1, the Emmy-winning actor didn’t perform in it, he worked behind the scenes as a writer and producer.
Well, that changed in Shrinking’s second season as Goldstein joined the cast to play the drunk driver responsible for the death of Jimmy’s wife. That part is what resulted in him shaving his beard, but he wasn’t thrilled about it, as he told CBS Mornings:
I cried. I’ve had a beard my whole life, like, I was born with a beard. I’d come out with a, like, they did know which side round my face was. And so I shaved the beard. I was like, ‘Oh, I look like my 12-year-old nephew if he was an old lady.’
I totally get where he's coming from. Changing one's appearance can be challenging, especially when you haven’t done it in a very long time. However (despite what the actor believes) he looks good both with and without a beard.
That didn’t quell his feelings though. When asked again about what it was like to live without his beard, he quipped back with this:
No, it’s very, very uncomfortable. Also, I discovered, sadly, that it turns out women don’t like me for my personality.
Now, clearly, he’s joking, as you can see in the full clip below, but I also imagine that this really was hard for him.
I know that for me, seeing Goldstein without a beard immediately took the idea of him being Roy Kent out of my mind. And that kind of accidental typecasting was on Bill Lawrence’s mind as he told THR that he couldn’t quite picture the actor in the Shrinking cast at first because he got caught up in thinking ‘No, Brett’s more like Roy Kent.’ However, Jason Segel “rallied” for the actor, and he was right, because he’s so good in the role.
Then, after explaining all that, Lawrence joked that having the Ted Lasso actor shave for this was a nonnegotiable, saying:
There’s very few things that were dealbreakers to me but I wanted him to shave the beard, not really for the character as much as for how I knew it would make him slightly miserable.
So, knowing that, Brett Goldstein’s dramatic reaction to shaving his beard makes even more sense. However, it was all worth it because the character the actor has created is so different from his other roles, and that’s in part thanks to switching up his look.
To see Brett Goldstein without a beard in Shrinking or to see him with one in Ted Lasso, you can watch both these great shows on Apple TV+.
