After “Shrinking” prima Jason Segel wrapped nine seasons of nan multi-cam sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” successful 2014, he decided he wanted to break retired of his drama mold. But Segel said he was met pinch guidance from nan industry.

“[It] was for illustration a decade of being connected 1 show and doing a bunch of romanticist comedies and stuff, I decided I wanted to spot if I was bully astatine dramas, and truthful I, like, dove successful hard,” Segel said during THR’s Comedy Actor Roundtable. And I thought, ‘Look retired world. Here comes maine doing drama.’ And it turns retired cipher gives a shit.”

Then he did nan 2015 movie “The End of nan Tour,” wherever he played nan precocious novelist David Foster Wallace, which earned Segel fantabulous reviews. Richard Lawson wrote successful Vanity Fair, “Segel handles Wallace’s intricate, discursive reside pinch singular dexterity, putting Wallace’s brilliant, troubled mind connected show for each of america to admire, while still managing to play a quality being.”

At nan time, Segel said, “I wanted to do thing different. I needed to make a change. If I’m going to do this for 50 much years, it has to beryllium reflective of what I’m feeling.”

Looking backmost connected nan experience today, he said, “Nobody saw [the movie], but I felt like, ‘You tin do it.’ And truthful that was important for me, because I didn’t want to beryllium nan feline who sat his full life wondering if he could do something.”

Segel remembered that “The End of nan Tour” head James Ponsoldt told him, “Every clip you do comedy, I tin show you want to termination yourself.” “A Man connected nan Inside” prima Ted Danson, who besides participated successful nan roundtable, added, “if you’re really bully astatine comedy, I deliberation you besides person a sadness that you’re successful touch with.”

Several years aft “The End of nan World,” Segel moved to nan quaint hamlet of Ojai, California. One day, a friend of “Shrinking” shaper Bill Lawrence happened to spot Segel stepping successful town.

“I’m Big Bird. I locomotion around. I activity astatine everybody. I’m benignant of a municipality mascot,” he explained, saying that a man saw him from crossed nan thoroughfare and texted Lawrence saying, “‘Hey, Jason Segel seems for illustration a happy guy. Let’s activity pinch him.'”

Ultimately, Segel has recovered that a equilibrium betwixt drama and play is what he astir responds to successful his projects. He calls James L. Brooks “the king” of this approach, noting that his films make clear that “life is complicated.”

“There aren’t heroes and villains, and you outcry done nan funny worldly and laughter done nan reliable stuff,” he explained.

Watch nan afloat THR chat below: