Christa Miller had a front-row seat for the creation of the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking.” The long-time actress, who had standout roles in “Scrubs” and “Cougar Town,” is married to co-creator Bill Lawrence and also friends with Lawrence’s fellow co-creator Brett Goldstein.
“Brett was writing this dark show about therapy and I’m in therapy, and I was just really drawn to it,” Miller tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. Goldstein even wrote a character for Miller and named her “Christa.”
“So, of course, I want to do anything that he wants to do that has my name in it,” Miller adds. “But then Bill wanted to do more of a comedy take on it. And they decided to merge it [for what would become ‘Shrinking’]. It completely spoke to me. Other things were coming in and people were starting to go back to work but to my agents, I was saying, ‘I want to do Shrinking.’ I just knew it.”
Co-created by Lawrence, Goldstein and star Jason Segel, the Apple TV+ comedy is about a therapist named Jimmy (Segel) who, in an effort to overcome the grief following the death of his wife, begins to tell his patients an unfiltered truth about their situations. Miller plays Liz, the character originally named Christa, Jimmy’s neighbor who has taken a large role in helping raise his teenage daughter (played by Lukita Maxwell).
“Every character, with how I work, will have a version of me and you tap into that part of you that maybe you don’t show all the time,” Miller says about the similarities between her and Liz – both of whom have grown children and a passion for rock collecting. “I think she’s vulnerable. I think she wants to she wants to be cool. I think I’m pretty cool. But I think she really wants to be cool and fit in and have a place in her world. And I think she’s struggling to find that after just being a mom.”
One way Liz breaks out of her shell is by befriending Jimmy’s colleague and longtime friend, Gaby (played by Jessica Williams). The energy between Miller and Williams is one of the comedy’s best assets and something Miller says Lawrence was excited to explore even before production began.
“The way Bill and [casting directors] Debbie Romano and Brett Benner work, they really cast different people with different chemistry,” Miller says. “To be on a set, every day you’re working with someone different. That’s what life is: We all have different chemistry with different people, and different people bring out different parts of ourselves. Jessica and I, they were just starting to write us fun stuff together, and then our friendship developed from there.”
In addition to being a key series star on “Shrinking,” Miller is also the music supervisor. It’s a role she’s filled exceptionally well on “Scrubs,” “Cougar Town” and “Ted Lasso.”
“It’s the most fun,” Miller says of being a music supervisor. Her job, she says, requires her to make tough choices to find the right song for the right moment – even if she already promised the song to someone else. Case in point: The Strumbellas’ song “Spirits,” which Miller had given to director Zach Braff to use in a later “Shrinking” episode but which she had to pull back for the first episode after much trial and error.
“I spent eight hours with this pilot and it had to be [finalized] and I was like, ‘I’m going to steal that.’ I go, ‘Bill, what about this?’ And Bill goes, ‘Why didn’t you play this for me before? I hadn’t because I had given it to Zach and then Zach was like, ‘I can’t believe you stole that!’” she says. “But it was fine because we put Rosa Linn’s ‘Snap’ at the end of his episode, and now she’s going on tour with Ed Sheeran.”
“Shrinking” was renewed for Season 2 and will eventually return once the writers’ strike is settled. Miller says she hopes Liz is able to figure out “what she’s doing with her life,” but warns it won’t be easy.
“It’s difficult from thin air to decide what you want to do to be busy, it’s hard to get motivated in that way,” she says. “I have a couple of friends who were in that very same situation. I was with them when their kids left home, and they were lost. Both of them now have successful businesses, which is so cool. But the years that they were figuring it out were difficult. And I feel like that’s gonna be where Liz is gonna be.”
“Shrinking” is streaming on Apple TV+.
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