Having Michael J. Foxon the set of Shrinking was somewhat of a full circle moment for the show’s star and creator Jason. Segel.
Chatting onJimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, Segel shared how he credited the ‘Back to the Future‘ star for motivating him as a young actor and writer.
“There was a moment in my early-to-mid 20s when I was doing How I Met Your Motherand ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ at the same time and ‘The Muppets’ around the same time, too, and I wrote both of those movies, and I was tired, I was like, ‘I’m going to collapse under the weight of this,'” he recalled. “We literally used to say to each other, our little group, ‘If Michael J. Fox could do it, we could do it,’ because he was doing ‘Back to the Future’ and Family Ties at the same time.”
“I got a chance to tell him that when he was on Shrinking,” Segel shared. “It was a really meaningful moment to me to say ‘I think part of why I’m here is because of the bar you set.'”
Shrinking, which airs on Apple TV, follows the personal lives of therapists and their intertwining friend group. The show also stars Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams. Ford’s character Paul, who is diagnosed with Parkinson’s finds a friend in Fox’s character, Jerry, who also has the illness on the show, as the two strike up conversation in their doctor’s waiting room.
While Fox’s character has striking similarities to his real life, in which he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the 1990s and raised millions of dollars in research for the disease, hetold Shrinking showrunner, Bill Lawrence that he’d only join the cast if he able to play “some dude.”
Related: ‘Shrinking’ Star Says Having Michael J. Fox on Set Is ‘A Beautiful Thing’
“He said, ‘I don’t care what I do as long as I’m playing just a guy,’” Lawrence shared. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to play Mike Fox with Parkinson’s. I just want to play some dude.”
Relating to Segel’s struggles of working on multiple projects, Fox also spoke about the pressures of starring in both ‘Back to the Future’ and Family Ties in his latest book, ‘‘Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum’ where he said he “was Alex P. Keaton during the day and Marty McFly at night.”
The season finale of Shrinking airs this Wednesday on Apple TV.
This story was originally published by Parade on Apr 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the Celebs section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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