Michael Urie Says Starring in ‘Shrinking’ Pushed Him to Start Therapy: “I Enjoyed It”
Michael Urie knows what it means to learn from his characters. The actor shared he began a personal therapy journey after starring in Apple TV’s therapy-centric Shrinking.
“The show is so, I think, careful and yet reckless with mental health,” Urie told People.
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Shrinking stars Jason Segel as Jimmy, a grieving therapist who takes unorthodox and overly personal approaches with his clients. Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams fill out the main cast; Urie plays Brian, Jimmy’s best friend.
“We should not be ashamed of our mental healthcare,” Urie said. “We should all be exploring it, we should all be open to it.”
In terms of his own therapy journey, Urie said he’s “enjoyed it” so far. “It was really fun,” he joked. “I have enjoyed going to therapy and deepening my relationship to my own mental health.”
The process has also furthered his personal definition of mental health. “It is a science,” he said. “There is a science to mental health, but feelings and emotions is… I don’t think that’s scientific. I think that we come to our own ways. And as much as I like to think my therapist can give me all the answers, the truth is it’s just a part of it.”
As he’s continued working on himself, Urie now views therapy as “just one part of my forever journey of figuring my own heart and brain out.”
“It’s been a journey,” he continued. “It’s been at times frustrating, at times fun, at times confusing, just like the show, the same ways that…the show continues to deal with new mental health issues.”
Urie teased the second installment of the Emmy-nominated show will explore Brian’s narcissism. “That one, especially to play someone who is called a narcissist is interesting and hard because you can’t really tell a narcissist that they’re a narcissist,” he said.
In addition, the show will focus on more chosen families, which Urie says felt important to him. “We find new chosen families for all kinds of reasons, not just because our actual family isn’t there for us, for whatever reason, but they can be proximity, it can be some kind of divide, can be that they’re no longer with us. And this show has all of those things,” he said. “We find each other as a chosen family for all kinds of reasons that we can’t go to our actual family.”
He continued, “Certainly for me, as a queer person and as somebody who moved away from his hometown, anybody who leaves their hometown is eventually going to find their own new chosen family.”
Shrinking season two will premiere Oct. 16.
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