[This story contains spoilers from Shrinking season two, episode 10, “Changing Patterns.”]
It was a legen — wait for it — dary How I Met You Mother reunion in this week’s episode of Shrinking.
Cobie Smulders and Jason Segel, who played Robin Scherbatsky and Marshall Eriksen in the 2000-era sitcom, reunited on the second season of the Apple TV+ comedy starring Segel.
In “Changing Patterns,” Smulders plays Sofi, a single mother who’s selling her old yellow Mini Cooper, which Jimmy (Segel) wants to buy for daughter Alice’s (Lukita Maxwell) 18th birthday. When the two meet in the world of Shrinking, there’s an immediate connection as Jimmy explains that Alice always loved her mom’s yellow ride, and he wanted to get her the same model for her first car.
Here’s how it played out:
“You and your wife must hate her,” Sofi jokes about why they’re giving her the car, to which Jimmy replies, “I’m gonna say something now that’s gonna make you feel bad and act weird. So I’m gonna ask you to try really hard not to. My wife is dead.”
Sofi replies: “Of course she is. Cool. I mean, not cool. My ex-husband is dead… to me, that was bad. I do that joke a lot, but I say it in a funnier way. I go, ‘He’s dead… to me.’ No, that’s the same thing.”
The two continue bantering and Smulders’ character explains that her ex left her for her best friend, and now she drops her child off at her former best friend’s house every other weekend. “I helped hang that bitch’s wallpaper,” she says. “There’s not a single bubble in it.”
Sofi then asks Jimmy if he ever thinks that what happened to her is worse than what happened to him. In true therapist fashion, he says no but that “you and I can both be sad without this being a competition.” Still, she points out that he gets to keep his good memories with his late wife, whereas all her good memories of her ex-husband are tainted. So, she wins. And, he lets her.
“I have so much anger, OK? I feel like I’m stuck. It’s probably gonna be easier for you to move on eventually,” she says. Jimmy replies that it doesn’t seem like she has too much anger but the right amount. “Sometimes, for me, moving on feels impossible,” he says, to which she immediately replies, “Well, don’t say impossible.”
In the conversation with THR below, Smulders unpacks her reunion with Segel (co-creator of Shrinking) to talk about what he was like as a scene partner 10 years after the How I Met Your Mother finale. While the Marvel star hasn’t heard anything yet about returning for Shrinking season three, she says she’s definitely interested in playing a possible love interest for Segel’s Jimmy (“I feel like there is a lot of potential”) and explains why she would always say yes to a HIMYM reboot.
***
I was so happy to see you in this week’s episode. My colleague said it “thrilled her HIMYM fan heart.”
Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness. That’s what I’m trying to do.
What was it like reuniting onscreen with Jason Segel 10 years after the How I Met Your Mother finale?
It’s magic. He’s just the best. He’s the kindest. He is so fun. We had almost a full day on set, doing the couple scenes that we had in the show, and it was just wonderful. It’s such a wonderful crew. The cast is obviously just phenomenal onscreen, but offscreen, they’re even kinder and kind of more amazing. So when this came my way, it was sort of like a “No duh!” And I was just really excited because I’m such a fan of the show. I think the show’s so beautiful. It’s so well written. It’s just humanity on display, and I love it. So I was just really honored. I felt very special to be invited in for the day. It was wonderful.
What was it like joining a show that you were also a fan of?
Well, doing a guest star role is always intimidating. Everyone in the crew knows each other. It’s first day of school for you, but everyone else’s buds, and luckily, one of my buds was there already, and so I felt pretty great because I just got to hang out with Jason, and then everybody was so kind and welcoming and collaborative that I was just able to sort of fold in, and it was just a beautiful day shooting.
Did you and Jason fall right back into being comfortable acting opposite each other?
I think so. I love playing with Jason. I was able to do so for nine years, which is insane these days, so it just sort of felt like very normal, natural. And again, the show’s so well written that the character was already kind of there, even before we got into the actual work of it, and Jason is obviously like such a talented actor as well as a wonderful human being, so I think we just fell right into step.
Sort of piggybacking off of that, what was it like working with Jason on a different kind of show?
I think it’s really interesting, because as an audience, I’m sure people are used to the Robin-Marshall dynamic, but Jason and I have grown up together off-camera. So, we have a lot of shared life experiences, and so it was not difficult to sort of switch that that chemistry between us. He’s so talented, and we just fell right back into it. But I think it’ll be interesting. So it’s an interesting and new dynamic for people to see. But I just know him as Jason, and it’s easy to transition that relationship into the many different colors that you can play onscreen.
Not much came from Jimmy and Sofi, besides a nice conversation and maybe a little bit more flirting that we’ve seen from Jimmy. Would you be open to returning in season three as a potential love interest for Jimmy?
Absolutely. I mean, it depends. I don’t know which direction they’re planning to go for next season. But I loved my time on the show, and I would happily work with Jason and the rest of the cast again. So yeah, I would love to. I have no idea what their plans are, though.
Where do you think Jimmy and Sofi could go from here, hypothetically?
I feel like there is a lot of potential. There is an initial chemistry. I think that’s what they’re both processing at the end. It’s surprising when you meet somebody and all of a sudden, you’re just brutally honest. You’re not doing the thing like, “Yeah, fine. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Life is fine.” There is a connection right away between these two people. But there’s obviously a lot of other elements at play. Sofi has a young kid. She’s obviously been a bit burned, and they’re coming from a different place. They’re both single people, but they have different experiences. So we’ll see. I don’t know. I don’t know if they want to hone that anymore, or mine that relationship in the future. But it would be an interesting coupling to see. I’d love to know how it all works out.
It was nice to see Jimmy have an actual connection with someone. You mentioned earlier that they came to you with this. What were the conversations around you getting involved in Shrinking?
[Co-creator] Bill Lawrence reached out and sort of pitched me on the idea of this character, and he didn’t really need to. I was like, “Yeah, sure. Like, let’s go. Let’s play.” And then I talked to Jason a little bit about it after, and it all just kind of fell into place. And luckily, I was here and in town. It was just a quick day, just a quick little couple of scenes. And it flew by. It was so much fun. I didn’t want to leave. It was very, sort of just like “come and come over, Red Rover, Red Rover, we call Cobie over” for the day. I just did it. And here we are. I haven’t seen it. I can’t wait to see it.
In How I Met Your Mother, I feel like Robin and Marshall were not as close as some of the other characters were. How is your relationship with Jason offscreen?
Jason and I always talked about how we were the babies on the show — I was 22 when I got on that show, I think Jason is only a couple years older than me. Jason is so sweet. He’s so funny. He’s so talented. He’s so musical. We kind of grew up together. How I Met Your Mother was certainly the first comedy series I’d ever done. So I was constantly insecure and double-guessing myself, and Jason is just so naturally funny. He was incredibly supportive. It was just an absolute blast, and I kind of can’t believe that we got to do it for nine years. That doesn’t happen now. Even on the best of shows, nothing’s going for nine years. So, I feel very lucky to have been in his orbit for that long and made each other laugh as much. I mean, what a gig, right? You get to go to work and try to make each other laugh all day. That’s essentially what we did for for nine years.
With Shrinking, when you first read the script and who Sofi was, what were your thoughts?
We played with it a little bit on the day, but my thoughts about it were that I just loved her. I don’t know if it’s Jimmy that brings it out in her, but a woman who’s gone through kind of a nightmare scenario with her relationship being able to laugh at it and have an awareness about her? I find really funny and really genuine. So, we only get a taste of this person, but I think she’s complicated. She’s come out of something really hard and is now sharing a custody with somebody in the same situation. I can’t even imagine. You kind of have to laugh at life. Sometimes you have to go, “All right, this is not what I expected. Let’s try to make the best out of it,” and I think that’s what she’s trying to do.
Sofi and Jimmy shared the scene with Ted McGinley’s Derek. What was it like working with him?
He’s hilarious. He’s so funny on the show and even more entertaining in real life; a really sweet guy. Apparently, we’re neighbors. I couldn’t be happier. It was perfect, perfect casting. You know, when those things align, where a human and a role kind of come together, and you’re just sitting back in awe, that’s what I feel like being with him is like. He’s constantly improvising and making it funnier and funnier.
You did reprise your role of Robin in How I Met Your Father. What was it like, returning to that character almost 10 years after the show ended?
It was wild. It was a very rare experience to say goodbye forever to something, and then walk back into that bar again. To walk into that bar again was very emotional. The set department did such an amazing job. I was like, “Is this it?” They’re like, “It’s not exactly it, but we were able to find some of the things,” and it looked and felt [the same], except I was alone without my original friends. It was a trip. It was such a cool thing. Pam Fryman, who directed almost every episode of our show, was also directing this episode, so that was wild. There was some holdover crew members. So it felt like a weird sort of flashback but also kind of lonely, but it was really fun.
Anytime I’m in a situation like that where there’s a new show and a new cast, but they want to bring somebody back in, or I see somebody in the street who’s like, 15 years old, and they’re like, “I’m just watching the show for the first time.” You’re like, “Oh my gosh,” and I just appreciate the love that I feel for the show still to this day after all of this time. And that’s really special. And so anytime I can kind of dip back into that, it’s just lovely to do.
You mentioned that you were alone in the reboot, without the rest of your friends in this bar that you all spent so much time in. Would you ever be interested in returning to Robin again with the original cast in some capacity?
Sure. I know it’s all about the reboots. I know everybody is either doing a podcast about it, or they’re doing a whole new thing. I am not in conversations with anyone about it. The way I feel about it is, we got to do this for nine years. I feel like asking for anything more than that is like asking for too much. It was such a gift, and I loved that time. But of course. If people wanted to get back together, if there was interest for it, if it all worked out, of course I would. I want to hang out with those people all the time.
***
New episodes of Shrinking season two release on Apple TV+ every Wednesday until the finale on Dec. 24.
English (US) ·