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USA TODAY

Care to watch Indiana Jones get high?
That throwaway teaser – though entirely accurate – is but one reason to tune into Shrinking, a new dramedy series (premiering January 27 on Apple TV+) from the delightfully askew minds who conjured up the hit show Ted Lasso.
But don’t look for many direct parallels between the two shows, one an Emmy-winning series about a hapless American football coach wrangling a British soccer team, and the other a new comedy about a filter-free therapist (Jason Segel) in the grips of debilitating grief.
“If there’s any similarity between the two shows, it’s that both are about people you hopefully want to spend more time with,” says Shrinking co-creator Brett Goldstein, who was a writer on Ted Lasso and won an Emmy last year for his role as cantankerous but loveable footballer Roy Kent.

“There’s mainly a consistency of vibe and an acknowledgement that things are rough, but we’ll figure it out. We may go darker than Ted Lasso, but what underlies them both is a hopefulness,” Segel adds.
Shrinking may well find the Ted Lasso veterans scoring again. It’s the story of Segel’s grieving shrink, Jimmy Johns, whose crisis leads him to give his patients his unvarnished take on their problems as he works to reassemble the pieces of his life with the help of friends and colleagues.


That support network includes his neighbour Liz (Christa Miller), a mother with empty-nester blues, and feisty colleague Gaby (Jessica Williams, a former correspondent on American satirical news programme The Daily Show).
The gang’s cognitive therapy office boss, Dr Phil Rhodes, is brought to grouchy life by none other than Harrison Ford, 80, who is enjoying his first small-screen heyday, thanks to his star turn in Yellowstone prequel 1923, alongside Helen Mirren.
Rhodes has a secret that at one point in the series finds him in a decidedly altered state, all to such dry comic effect as to make one wonder whether the man who played hard-boiled CIA operative Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger might find a late-stage career on the stand-up circuit.

“It just shouldn’t have been this easy [to get Ford to act in the series],” Goldstein says. from London, where he recently completed filming on the third and final season of Ted Lasso. He says the idea of getting the Hollywood A-lister was almost a joke in itself.
“We figured, ‘Let’s waste a day asking him, and then we’ll find someone else’. It was likely throwing an idea down a well,” he says.
But Bill Lawrence – who developed Shrinking with Goldstein mostly via Zoom calls, and co-created Ted Lasso with its star, Jason Sudeikis – had a bit of an in. Ford lives up the street from him in Los Angeles. “So I figured if I sent the script, at least he might know who I was,” he says.

Ford called almost immediately – to complain. “Harrison said, ‘My character isn’t huge in the pilot; does that change?’ And I said, ‘Well, if the character is played by you, yes, it does!’ His reaction was not one I was prepared for, let’s just say.”
During rehearsals, the show’s creators noticed the same thing: Ford was there to work, not preen. “Even at the first table read, I could see the glee in his eyes [at] getting laughs, and I thought, ‘Right, he hasn’t done proper comedy, so this might be really exciting for him,’” Goldstein says.
Lawrence, whose comedy bona fides include Spin City and Scrubs, says Ford is blunt about comedic direction. “He’ll just say to us, ‘How do I make this funny? I want to know.’ He’s a student.”

One with great timing, says Segel, who would know. “He has genuine comedy moves; he wasn’t just there to say lines ironically,” he says, referencing the aforementioned altered-state scene, which he says reminds him of a British screen legend. “You’re going to see Harrison Ford going full Peter Sellers.”
“What a great tool to reveal things about your main character,” Lawrence says of using therapy as a plot anchor. “Just think about The Sopranos. With Tony [Soprano] seeing a therapist, we got to see his true nature. But here I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if the therapist is actually the character we care about?’”
Both Lawrence and Goldstein say they have benefited from therapy in their own lives, which informed their writing. Although a number of recent shows have leveraged therapists in their plots – from Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd’s dark comedy The Shrink Next Door, also on Apple TV+, to Ted Lasso – the duo felt their premise had fresh possibilities.
Therapy on film sets? Subject matter, hours, Covid rules create stress
“My version of this show was darker than Bill’s; he lightened it up a bit,” Goldstein says with a laugh. “But I loved exploring what is essentially a very strange relationship. The therapist knows everything, but there are boundaries.”
Segel was intrigued by the notion of a therapist “suddenly colouring outside the lines” after enduring a life-altering tragedy. “I’m both gifted and cursed with having neither pride or shame, and seeing someone very raw can be fun,” he says.


Meet Mitchell Slaggert, the heartthrob behind Landman’s Ryder: the actor modelled for Calvin Klein and Versace, and starred in the Gossip Girl reboot before landing a role on the Taylor Sheridan drama

Meet Landman star Kayla Wallace, who plays the fierce lawyer Rebecca Falcone: the Canadian actress joined the cast including Billy Bob Thornton and Demi Moore – and is married to her Hallmark co-star

Who is Eddie Cibrian? The TV star was once married to Real Housewife Brandi Glanville, but left her for country singer LeAnn Rimes – and once upon a time, he was in a boy band

At 2025 Golden Globes The Brutalist, Emilia Perez and Shogun triumph, Demi Moore surprises

TV shows and streaming video

Harrison Ford shows ‘genuine comedy moves’ opposite Jason Segel in Apple TV+’s Shrinking – creators reveal how they lassoed Indiana Jones star

Harrison Ford plays Dr Phil Rhodes in the upcoming Apple TV+ dramedy Shrinking, and has been praised by cast members and the show’s creators for his hilarious performance. Photo: Apple TV+

Shrinking co-creator Brett Goldstein at the 74th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, in 2022. Photo: Getty Images

Christa Miller, as Liz, and Jessica Williams, as Gaby, in a still from Shrinking. Photo: Apple TV+

Jason Segel (left), as Jimmy Johns, and Harrison Ford, as Dr Phil Rhodes, in a still from Shrinking. Photo: Apple TV+

Ted Lasso, which was worked on by Shrinking co-creators Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence, won the Emmy for outstanding comedy series at the 74th Emmy Awards, in Los Angeles, in 2022. Photo: AP

Golden Globes 2023: The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin win top awards; Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett, Austin Butler and Colin Farrell take top acting awards; The White Lotus wins

Michelle Yeoh poses with her award for best actress in a musical or comedy for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”  at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California. Colin Farrell and Austin Butler won the best actor prizes. Photo: Reuters

Colin Farrell accepting the best actor in a musical or comedy award for “The Banshees of Inisherin”. Photo: Rich Polk/NBC via AP

Jennifer Coolidge poses with her award for best supporting actress in a limited series for “The White Lotus”. Photo: Reuters

Quinta Brunson poses with the award for best actress in a TV musical or comedy series for “Abbott Elementary”. Photo: AFP

Julia Garner accepts the best supporting actress in a TV series award for “Ozark”. Photo; Rich Polk/NBC via AP

Michelle Yeoh poses backstage at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony with her award for best performance by an actress in a musical or comedy for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Austin Butler poses with his award for best actor in a drama for “Elvis”. Photo: Reuters

Quentin Tarantino presents Steven Spielberg with the award for best drama for “The Fabelmans” at the Golden Globe Awards. Photo: Rich Polk/NBC via AP

Angela Bassett accepts the best supporting actress award for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”. Photo: Rich Polk/NBC via AP

Ke Huy Quan poses with his award for best supporting actor for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. Photo: Reuters

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro (left) poses with the award for best animated film backstage at the Golden Globe Awards. Photo: AFP

Hollywood in 2023: Tom Cruise and Timothée Chalamet; Barbie and Ken film; Indiana Jones and Fast & Furious end; more horror movies

Hollywood’s output in 2023 includes the Barbie movie, with Margot Robbie (above) in the title role, as well as more from Tom Cruise and Timothée Chalamet. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures/TNS

Actor Michael J. Fox speaks during a panel discussion on Parkinson’s disease in Las Vegas in 2015. Photo: Reuters/Rick Wilking

James Gunn arrives for the premiere of The Suicide Squad at the Regency Village theatre in Westwood, California in August 2021. Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images/TNS

(From left) Daniel Durant, Troy Kotsur and Emilia Jones in a still from CODA. Photo: Apple TV+

‘How is she going to kill people?’: M3GAN screenwriter on creating a new horror icon, and why she’s not a doll like Chucky and Annabelle

M3GAN, an AI child minder played by Amie Donald (above), is the lead character in a horror movie of the same name. Screenwriter Akela Cooper talks about creating the character and making her different from previous on-screen killer dolls Chucky and Annabelle. Photo: Universal Pictures

(From left) Violet McGraw as Cady, Amie Donald as M3GAN, and Allison Williams as Gemma in a still from M3GAN. Photo: Universal Pictures

Screenwriter Akela Cooper at the Los Angeles premiere of M3GAN in December, 2022. Photo: Getty Images

M3GAN mania has been under way since the movie’s trailer was released in late 2022. Photo: AFP

(From left) Amie Donald as M3GAN, Allison Williams as Gemma and Violet McGraw as Cady in a still from M3GAN. Photo: Universal Pictures

Amie Donald (Left) as M3GAN and Violet McGraw as Cady in a still from M3GAN. Photo: Universal Pictures

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From the minds behind Emmy-winning Ted Lasso, Shrinking, which debuts this month on Apple TV+, is about a therapist who’s brutally honest with his clients
The creators talk about the Star Wars actor’s comic turn as the protagonist’s boss, how they got him and why therapy is a ‘great tool’ for character development


Apple TV+’s Shrinking debuts this month, with Harrison Ford a natural in his first ‘proper comedy’. The creators talk about how they landed the A-lister.


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