Jason Segel Was ‘Really Unhappy’ Filming The End Of ‘How I Met Your Mother’
Jason Segel is opening up about why he was “really unhappy” towards the end of filming the popular sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. During The Hollywood Reporter’s Comedy Actor Roundtable, the Shrinking star chalked up his feeling of unhappiness to a lack of creative freedom. Despite his success in television and film, Segel said that in “the last couple of years” of filming How I Met Your Mother, he had to “grapple with why? What’s off about this equation?”
The actor, 43, admitted that though”it’s really great to make the decision of ‘f— it, I do what I want,'” there is a “system of permission in place.” He said that the people in charge will say things like, “‘We don’t give a s— [what you want to do].’ Like, ‘Good for you, man.'”
What Would Norton Do?
During the round table, the actor also opened up about wanting to expand his horizons in other genres following the sitcom’s series finale in 2014. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do next,” Segel recalled. “I really wondered if I was actually good enough to do drama. I took a movie called The End of the Tour to play David Foster Wallace. The degree of difficulty of it not looking like a Saturday Night Live sketch, when you get the glasses and the bandanna, and you’re saying the lines, felt so high.”
He compared the differences in preparing for the role, as it was completely different from comedy. “There was a lot of improv in how we came up, and these were big chunks of dialogue,” he said. “I literally just played in my head, ‘What would Edward Norton do?’ I got a dialect coach, and I did all these things that I heard you do if you’re a real actor. But man, I was scared.”
Forever Connected To How I Met Your Mother
Despite moving on from How I Met Your Mother, Segel shared in January that he would be open to reprising his role as Marshall Eriksen on the show’s spinoff, How I Met Your Father. He told ET that he would “do anything” for the show’s creators, adding, “Those people changed my life, and I would do anything they ever asked me to.”
Paul Rudd's Funniest Moments in Film and Television
Paul Rudd is a man of many hats: he’s one of the sexiest men alive, he’s a hilarious comedic actor, he’s an incredible dancer, and he plays numerous instruments. Born on April 6, 1969, in New Jersey, Rudd started out with a background in theater.
He attended the University of Kansas, where he majored in theater, then studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art with fellow actor Matthew Lillard. Furthering his education, he spent three months studying Jacobean drama in England.
Photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images
Paul Rudd’s funniest moments occurred in so many great pieces of comedic work. You may know him from 2009’s I Love You, Man for “slappin’ da bass” or as seemingly stupid Ned in 2011’s Our Idiot Brother. Rudd has taken on many acting roles, but most of us know him as the Ant-Man aka Scott Lang.
The actor made his debut over 30 years ago in 1991 when he starred in a Super Nintendo commercial. The following year, Rudd made his first television appearance, starring in the drama series Sisters, appearing in 20 episodes across three seasons. He then left the show to film his breakout film role in 1995’s Clueless as Alicia Silverstone’s love interest, Josh.
From there, Rudd’s acting roles came pouring in. He starred in the best rendition of Shakespeare’s iconic play Romeo and Juliet with 1996’s Romeo + Juliet alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, and John Leguizamo. In 2002, he was cast on Friends as Mike Hannigan, who dates and then marries Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow).
The early 2000s is when Rudd really made his mark as a comedic actor. In 2004, he began working with director/producer Judd Apatow, first on the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, then the following year on The 40-Year-Old Virgin. He subsequently worked with Apatow in 2007’s Knocked Up as frustrated husband Pete, married to Leslie Mann’s character Debbie.
Take a look below at Paul Rudd’s moments in film and television (Warning: many of these scenes are NSFW*):
