‘Shrinking’ Star Michael Urie Talks ‘Bold Move’ Of Brian’s Connection With Brett Goldstein’s Louis
SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for Shrinking Season 2 Episode 6.
Shrinking star Michael Urie was shocked, but excited to portray Brian’s efforts to connect with Louis (Brett Goldstein), the man who ran over Alice’s (Lukita Maxwell) mother and Jimmy’s (Jason Segel) wife Tia (Lila Bowden).
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In Episode 6 of the Apple TV+ comedy, titled “In A Lonely Place,” Alice learns that Brian has forged a friendship with Brett Goldstein’s character, who first showed up at the very end of Episode 1 in a big reveal. She forces Brian to take her to visit Louis without Jimmy knowing, and they hash through a lot of big feelings. If it weren’t for Brian following some previous advice from Jimmy, this may not have happened the way it did.
“Brian was the one, of all the characters, to be the one to fold Louis into this family’s chosen family, and to sort of help begin the process of, whether it’s possible to forgive someone like this,” Urie told Deadline. “I think it’s really interesting that it was Brian and such a bold move by the writers. And I was thrilled when I read it in the script. When I saw it in the script, I was so excited. And then it gets to play out in both comic and serious ways, the way that this show does so beautifully.”
In the below interview, the actor detailed the “gift” of Brian’s big monologue, the scenes filmed with Brett Goldstein and Lukita Maxwell and Brian’s hesitation to become a father with his husband Charlie (Devin Kawaoka).
DEADLINE: The theme of Season 2 is forgiveness, you had your moment with Jason/ Jimmy at the beginning, because he didn’t tell Brian about Gaby. How has that factored in up until this midpoint? Is there more of that for Brian as the show goes on?
MICHAEL URIE: That was a big moment for Brian and became an existential thing, bigger than just that one secret. It was “Are we even compatible as friends?” And it’s an interesting dynamic that I was excited to explore as a queer person with hetero friends. When you’re in the closet, pretending to be something you are not, or ignoring the things about yourself that are true, then those straight friendships that one has while in the closet, which I had, they have to evolve when you come out. I’m sure when Brian and Jimmy went through that part of their relationship, that coming out, I’m sure Jimmy was great, he was a great friend, super supportive, open, but it meant that, but Jimmy didn’t have to change when that happened, not really. Brian had to change, and this reckoning that they go through in episode three where Brian says to Jimmy, “Would we even be friends if we met today?” That’s really big. I’d never quite seen it before. I was so impressed and proud of the writers that they went there and put that in there. And as much as it’s something that needed to be said between them, it was really something that Brian needed to reckon with.
I think that in the last years of Tia’s life, of Jimmy’s late wife’s life, she became more important to Brian, perhaps than Jimmy, and certainly she’s the reason that he met Charlie. She was friends with Charlie. So you’re sort of finding out in the season — there’s so many things about Tia that we had put away during our grieving process, and now that we’re into this forgiveness process, this next steps, we were able to remember. The work that they weren’t doing is starting to get done, Jimmy makes a real effort to get to know Charlie and get to know them as their family, and now Brian finds himself in this totally shocking situation where he’s the one that’s first connected to Lewis and shows empathy. [He’s] the first one to sort of start that road to forgiveness with this guy who was responsible for the death of his dear friend.
DEADLINE: Were you nervous to portray that?
URIE: When I read it, it was a shock. I didn’t know it was coming. I think we knew that Brett was probably gonna play a part in season two, but we didn’t know what he was gonna do or who he was gonna play, and when this character came along, and suddenly he was playing that character, we were all totally, as I’m sure the audience was, shocked and very excited. It’s one of those things that I’ve been so excited for people to learn about. People are like, “Who’s Brett Goldstein playing?” I’m like, “I’m not telling you but it’s real good.” And he’s really terrific in the show. It’s nothing like Roy Kent, or [his] comedy specials.
DEADLINE: Did you talk with Brett, Jason and Bill about it? Episode 4 ends where you go, “Are you okay?” And then we don’t see them again until Episode 6, and we kind of see how that unfolded.
URIE: What’s was so good about the writers of Shrinking is that, first of all, there are a lot of mouths to feed. There’s a lot of characters, and only 30 minutes an episode to feed them all. And they do it every time, and they usually do it in at least two ways. Usually everyone has a problem and helps solve a problem. Every time I get a scene, every time I start looking at a scene, I always think, “Okay am I the shrink, or am I the patient? Am I on the couch, or am I in the chair, and this was a perfect example, earlier in the episode, Jimmy tells Brian about Brian’s problem with Charlie, about Charlie wanting to be a father, and Brian not being sure, thinking he would be bad at it, thinking he doesn’t have what it takes to be a good dad. Jimmy says “You will be a good dad, because anytime you’re faced with a problem or someone in crisis or someone in need, you take a deep breath and you help them, and you’re there for them.”
Then cut to half an hour later in the episode, when here Brian is faced with a big problem and a person with a huge, huge problem, he does it. He takes a deep breath, and he shows empathy. He really has to learn that about himself, or relearn that about himself, and I wonder, if he hadn’t heard that earlier in the episode, if he hadn’t been encouraged by his friends earlier in the episode, like “You can handle this. Yes, you’re scared of what being a father might be like, but you’ve got what it takes. You just got to take a deep breath and face it. You can, you can solve this problem, or you can be there you have the tools.” And then when he needs the tools, he finds that he has them.
DEADLINE: And there’s a little bit of irony, craziness that Jimmy’s the one to tell him that, and then he applies it to someone that Jimmy hates.
URIE: Right.
DEADLINE: How much of the monologue was scripted? Did you add anything on the day? How was filming that scene?
URIE: Every word was scripted. I think there might have been a few alternate jokes, but they were discussed, and there’s nothing that in the moment I just threw in, I don’t think. I’ve never had a monologue this long in a TV show or movie before. It was such a gift that the writers trusted me with such a long piece of text, an uninterrupted text. I mean, you don’t, see that in TV, unless it’s like a lawyer giving a summation or a politician making a speech. You very rarely see somebody speak that long on television. So I was very honored that they trusted me with it, and that they wrote something so hilarious and nuanced, and that I got to give it to Lukita [Maxwell] as Alice, because at the end of season one, I probably would have said, of all the characters that I want to see, what happens between Brian and Alice was, — because Brian’s known Alice her entire life —there’s a lot of relationships that they have to tend to, but I wanted to know, what’s that relationship like? What’s the relationship between Alice and her guncle?
We’re starting to get that, and then you’ll see, in some ways, she’s the adult, and this also goes back to, when a person comes out of the closet when they’re in college, they kind of start over emotionally in some ways, and so, in some ways, [Brian] is like a little kid, which is part of the reason why he’s so afraid of being a father, because he feels like he’s a child. Anyway, the monologue itself, I was so honored. And they gave it to me ahead of time, just to say, “Just so, you know, this is something that we want, you know, you to be comfortable with.” I wanted to know it backwards and forward. So I was really prepared. It’s also like, I think it was like the end of the day on a Friday, before a day off. So, with the crew, you don’t want to not know your lines at the end of the day before our day off. You just want to be respectful of the people you work with. Everything that these writers write is terrific, but this, in particular, for me, was a real gift to get to play so many things in one speech without stopping and opposite such an amazing actor like Lukita. It was verbatim. We do improv on this show, but there’s stuff I wouldn’t dare try to improve upon.
DEADLINE: Did Brett have a reaction to your imitation of his accent when you say ‘Sorry’?
URIE: He was there that day, he was on set for that, the monologe, and he thought it was really funny. I think he said something like, “I don’t talk like that.” And it was like “You do.” That’s what’s really cool about him playing this part on Shrinking. Anybody who knows him from Ted Lasso thinks that he’s like that, but he’s not like that at all. He’s actually this cheeky, sweet, funny man, really funny, like, intentionally funny, and sweet and shy. I mean, I guess Roy Kent is shy too, but he’s so tough.
DEADLINE: What has the layer of Brian and Charlie wanting a baby added this season for you?
URIE: I think that Brian didn’t have a great relationship with his father, and then Brian came out of the closet, not late, there’s no right time, but he came out of the closet when he was in his early 20s, which certainly isn’t late for my generation. I can relate to this, people of my generation, people of my age, when they were coming up and developing their dreams and hopes and wants, being married to someone of the same sex was not an option, and so didn’t enter into their dreams. Being a parent, it was more of an option than being married, but also a very complicated endeavor, not that it’s not complicated for straight people to have children, but it’s a more natural and organic process than for two people of the same anatomy to have a child.
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I know from my personal experience, the conversation around obtaining a child when you are partnered with another man, there’s so many options that it can sometimes derail the conversation entirely. And I think if you aren’t 100% on board with being a father like Charlie is, Charlie is like, “That’s what I want.” He makes that gives that beautiful speech in Episode 5, where he’s like “this is what I really want.” For Brian, that was just never part of his dream. Not only not part of his dream, but like not part of the reality. So, he didn’t entertain it. This is new for him, and I think he’s also obtuse. They had a conversation when they first got together about kids, and Brian heard what he wanted to hear and let it go. For Charlie, it’s been festering. So that’s why he’s so taken aback when he sees Charlie with the baby, and it takes a second for Brian to come around to the idea. I can relate to that. I think that is a thing that queer people my age grapple with, have to deal with, compartmentalize in a way. I really like this take on the show. This is another example of Brian’s problem is Brian, but some of the obstacles are his queerness, as opposed to his problem being his queerness. I’ve played gay characters where their problem is that they’re gay for whatever reason, like coming out or being held back, or whatever, but this guy’s doing great in life, and as he grows up, sometimes the obstacle is the sort of, rules he set for himself, or within society he set, to get ahead and to be happy and all those things. And now that his life’s going so well, they’re coming back up to haunt him.
DEADLINE: At the end of Episode 6, Alice Louis and Brian are sitting together. What was, filming those scenes like? How did the idea that Jimmy’s going to find out about this play into the sequence?
URIE: Obviously [Brian]’s been terrified of anyone finding out that he’s friends with Louis, that he’s made friends with this guy, especially Jimmy. But when he sees the note in [Alice’s] wallet, he realizes he’s gonna get found out one way or the other. So he starts with Alice, and she blackmails [Brian]. Shooting that scene with the two of them, getting to play these three completely different characters in one room, exploring their shared tragedy was, I thought, just extraordinary. I remember every second of it. We remarked on it to each other, how exciting it was to be playing a scene like this with these three different characters. The show is so good at doing that, putting people together, putting any combination of characters together, and seeing what happens. My hand got smacked once by a writer for [me] saying “It writes itself” because it doesn’t, I know it doesn’t write itself. That’s crazy. Nothing writes itself, but the magic that happens, these characters are so well-formed, and with actors like Lukita and Brett, putting them in a room together and adding this Brian element, what’s funny becomes so apparent. What’s heartbreaking becomes so apparent. They lead us there and give us the tools. It was a very exciting scene, one of my favorites.
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