<\/p>\n
Having Michael J. Fox<\/a><\/strong>on the set of Shrinking<\/em> was somewhat of a full circle moment for the show’s star and creator Jason. Segel. <\/strong><\/p>\n Chatting onJimmy Kimmel<\/a> Live<\/em> on Monday, Segel shared how he credited the ‘Back to the Future<\/a>‘ star for motivating him as a young actor and writer.<\/p>\n “There was a moment in my early-to-mid 20s when I was doing How I Met Your Mother<\/a><\/em>and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ at the same time and ‘The Muppets’ around the same time, too, and I wrote both of those movies<\/a>, 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 <\/em>at the same time.”<\/p>\n “I got a chance to tell him that when he was on Shrinking<\/em>,” 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.'”<\/p>\n Shrinking<\/em>, which airs on Apple TV, follows the personal lives of therapists and their intertwining friend group. The show also stars Harrison Ford<\/a><\/strong> and Jessica Williams<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n While Fox’s character has striking similarities to his real life, in which he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the 1990s<\/a> and raised millions of dollars in research for the disease, he<\/a>told\u00a0Shrinking\u00a0<\/em>showrunner,<\/a>\u00a0Bill Lawrence that he’d only join the cast if he able to play “some dude.”<\/p>\n Related: ‘Shrinking’ Star Says Having Michael J. Fox on Set Is ‘A Beautiful Thing’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018I don\u2019t care what I do as long as I\u2019m playing just a guy,\u2019\u201d Lawrence shared. \u201cHe was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to play Mike Fox with Parkinson\u2019s. I just want to play some dude.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/em><\/a> in his latest book, ‘\u2018Future Boy:\u00a0Back to the Future\u00a0and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum’ where he said he “was Alex P. Keaton during the day and Marty McFly at night.\u201d<\/p>\n The season finale of Shrinking <\/em>airs this Wednesday<\/a> on Apple TV. <\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Apr 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the Celebs<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2363041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[93296,371940,34641,459116,347093],"class_list":["post-2363040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-back-to-the-future","tag-forgetting-sarah-marshall","tag-michael-j-fox","tag-segel","tag-shrinking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Shrinking-Star-Jason-Segel-Shares-How-Michael-J-Fox-Inspired.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2363040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363042,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363040\/revisions\/2363042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2363041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}