He’s made a call to the wild, and now Harrison Ford is taking a seat in the shrink’s chair. Per Variety, Ford has been cast to star alongside Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty’s Jason Segel in the upcoming Apple comedy series, Shrinking.
From the logline of the show, Shrinking “follows Jimmy (Segel), a grieving therapist who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives... including his own.”
As Segel’s Jimmy seems to enact chaos, Ford will join the therapist-centric show as his mentor, Dr. Phil Rhodes. Described as a down-to-earth, sharp as a tack “blue collar shrink,” Phil is blunt with an ever-present twinkle. A pioneer in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Phil has built a successful practice over the years that he shares with his two young proteges, Jimmy and Gaby. Fiercely independent, Phil has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, which forces him out of his comfort zone as he grapples with intrusive friends, his estranged family and his legacy.
The character sounds similar to Ford’s own brand of lovable, grumpy old dude that we’ve seen in interviews throughout the years. Whether you know him from Star Wars or as the titular archaeology professor in the Indiana Jones films, Ford has been a movie star for decades with films like Blade Runner, The Fugitive, and Patriot Games. We’re set to see the actor next in this summer’s Indiana Jones 5, where he’ll reprise his never-ending role as the adventurer, shoulder-injury included.
As Variety notes, Shrinking will be the actor’s first starring role on television, with Ford having done minor television roles early in his career on Gunsmoke, Ironside, and The Virginian.
Shrinking is being co-written and executive produced by Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence, alongside Segel. Lawrence’s production company Doozer Productions will produce under Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer, with Community’s Neil Goldman joining as an executive producer. Warner Bros. Television is the studio, making it a part of Goldstein’s deal announced earlier this year to develop, create, and produce new television content for the studio.