‘Shrinking’ star Brett Goldstein wasn’t always going to play Louis: ‘It’s really exciting and really scary’
The following piece contains spoilers for the latest episode of “Shrinking”
Not even Brett Goldstein was certain he should play the pivotal character Louis on Season 2 of “Shrinking,” and Goldstein co-created the Apple TV+ comedy series with Jason Segel and Bill Lawrence
“We didn’t write it for me and when we were thinking about casting, Jason Segel called me and Bill into his trailer, and he said, ‘Brett should be doing this. Why isn’t Brett doing this?’” Goldstein says in an interview with Gold Derby. “And Bill was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And Jason said we should think about it overnight. And then the next morning, Bill sent me a very, very nice message where he was basically like, ‘I don’t see it necessarily, but I know I believe in you. If you think you can do this, I will back you, and we’ll figure it out.’ And then he also said, ‘You know, the entire season sort of hangs on this character. So if you f–k this up, you ruin the show.”
No pressure. As has been revealed during Season 2 of the series, an Emmy nominee in 2023 for Segel and co-star Jessica Williams, Louis is the man who killed Tia (Lilan Bowden), the wife of Jimmy (Segel), in a drunk driving accident. But during this week’s eighth episode, Louis’s backstory complicates the audience’s impression of the character. After having two drinks at a restaurant with his fiance during dinner, Louis decides he is sober enough to drive a few blocks home. It’s a mistake with deadly consequences and results in the death of Tia.
“We always knew that Season 2 was about forgiveness,” Goldstein says. “And this was like, ‘What’s the hardest version of that? What’s the most challenging version for this world we’ve created and for these characters that we love?’ And so it was the drunk driver responsible for all this trauma on the show, but we created something that I hope for an audience is not simple.”
“Shrinking” was co-created by Goldstein, Lawrence, and Segel, and the first season focused on Jimmy and his friends and family as they all rebuild their relationships following Tia’s death. Louis was never mentioned by name in the first season, but it was known that Tia died because of a drunk driver.
First introduced in the Season 2 premiere, Louis is about as far afield from Goldstein’s Emmy Award-winning role of Roy Kent as the actor could get. Goldstein describes Louis as an “open wound” and the character has spent several episodes trying to make amends with Jimmy and Jimmy’s daughter, Alice (Lukita Maxwell), after coming back into their lives. Louis often comes across like the shell of a person, and Goldstein plays the character with a deep sadness that might surprise viewers who know him best from “Ted Lasso.” In the first half of Season 2, the audience knows very little about Louis’s life before the crash – he’s clearly in pain, but it’s easy to view his trauma as righteous punishment because of his choice to drive drunk. So the decision in episode eight to show Louis celebrating with his fiance (guest star Meredith Hagner) but not to the extent he was even visibly addled before getting behind the wheel was a choice Goldstein says they made to challenge viewers’ expectations.
“It makes it harder on the audience,” he says. “It’s about how we treat people. They’ve called him a ‘drunk driver’ and Alice has called him a ‘f–king drunk.’ He isn’t really. But if that’s the case, it makes it easier, right? I can judge you because you’re bad. But the reality is it was a terrible mistake – a terrible, catastrophic mistake that destroyed everything – but it was something that most people could have done. All the stuff we write is always about how it’s very difficult to live in a world where everyone’s very judgmental, and you want people to be one thing, and they’re not. You go ‘drunk driver’ and he’s a term. But then he’s also a guy, he had a fiance. He definitely did a bad thing. It’s a terrible tragedy.”
Goldstein says playing Louis was “really exciting” and “really scary” because the character was so different from other roles he has done. But that’s also why he enjoyed the work.
“I also had to remember during Season 1 of ‘Ted Lasso,’ I was really scared of playing Roy Kent,” Goldstein says. “I didn’t know if I was doing it right. Sometimes you can take a while to find the thing, but then you get comfortable. I’m comfortable playing Roy where I could do it very easily now, within reason. So then this new character is like, that feeling of being scared again is good.”
The eighth episode ends with Louis getting what he thinks he wants: a visit from Jimmy, who offers him forgiveness. But the vibes are immediately off, and Jimmy’s absolution comes with a cost: he wants Louis to stay away from Alice, thus cutting off at the knees one of the few solid relationships Louis currently has in his life.
“Jason is a very generous actor,” Goldstein says of the standout scene, one that both actors handle with great care and empathy. “So on paper, Louis is getting what he wants, and Jimmy’s saying what he wants to hear, but it isn’t real.”
Goldstein says they did the scene together several times. To maintain the reality for Louis, who has his heart broken in real-time, Goldstein’s job is to forget what came before. No small task, but one in which he was greatly helped by his scene partner, Segel.
“There was a tape later on where he said different things when it was on me to get a different reaction, because I wasn’t expecting what he said, and it wasn’t what was used in the show,” Goldstein says. “But it was very helpful. It’s a very kind thing for an actor to do because it means I reacted completely realistically, right?”
“I think every part makes you a better actor,” Goldstein adds. “Because you get more experience, you get to do it more and learn.”
New episodes of “Shrinking” stream weekly through December 25.