Segel Lets It All Hang Out

“I’ve had ten years of relationships ending with me being dumped and some woman driving off in a car, like, wildly excited to be free,” said Jason Segel, star of the upcoming movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” in an interview with The Crimson. For Segel, the pathetic break-up that serves as the background of “Forgetting” is an example of art imitating life.

“I got dumped while I was naked once, which is why the naked break-up is in the movie, and I thought that it was hilarious while it was happening but I couldn’t indicate it,” he said. “I had to act like I was really upset while the whole time I’m thinking, ‘You’re giving me comedy gold here.’”

“Sarah Marshall,” the next installment in the seemingly endless string of Judd Apatow-produced comedies, might settle Segel’s relationship problems for good, and not just because of his hysterically drawn-out nude scene. After a slew of supporting roles in television and a successful writing career, Segel seems poised for breakout success.

“When I was like 20, I had just finished ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and I was walking my first red carpet and I was really excited and someone, a photographer, yelled, ‘Get off the red carpet so we can take pictures of the real celebrities.’ That hurt,” he said.

Despite the hype surrounding “Sarah Marshall,” Segel, a Los Angeles native, remains relaxed and approachable. At over six feet tall, he’s like the big goofy friend everyone loved growing up.

“I’ve been this height since I was twelve,” he said. “Kids used to stand around me in a circle and chant ‘Ride the Oaf, Ride the Oaf,’ but even then I thought that that was hilarious… I guess I just see life funny.”

In high school, Segel was a state championship basketball player with a slight interest in theater. He acted in his first play after stumbling upon the manuscript of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” during a particularly boring art history class. He was intrigued by the part of Jerry, with its challenging 20-page monologue. The play would end up launching his career—Judd Apatow was sitting in the audience. After that, Segel’s drama teacher convinced him to attend a mock audition class.

“He brought me into this room and there was a woman there, and they had me read side after side of audition pages. I didn’t think much of it, but like a week later my parents sat me down and said, ‘The lady in your mock audition class was the head of Paramount casting. They’re ready to put you in movies if that’s something you want to do.’”

Despite breaking into the business with relative ease, it has taken Segel a while to get his leading role. Segel is probably best-remembered as Nick, the John Bonham-worshiping burnout from the Apatow-produced cult television series “Freaks and Geeks.”

After that series he did another critically acclaimed but short-lived show with Apatow called “Undeclared,” followed by a stint on “CSI.” Recently, though, he has settled into the role of Marshall Eriksen on TV’s “How I Met Your Mother.” But for Segel, working on film has proved more exciting than television.

“While television is great and it’s wonderful to have a steady job, I don’t love playing the same character for this long. At the same time I feel incredibly grateful and lucky for that opportunity,” he said. “For me movies are fun, though, because you get to dive into this thing for three months and then you get to leave it behind. My character in ‘Knocked Up’ I couldn’t play for an extended period of time. He made me sick.”

Immediately following 2007’s “Knocked Up,” a project that reunited Segel and Apatow, he began collaborating on the writing of “Sarah Marshall” with Nick Stoller ’98, who also directed the film.

“Me and Nick have developed a sort of a Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards type thing… partners in every sense of the word—except sexually,” he said. “We’ve known each other for almost ten years. He wrote my ‘Undeclared’ episodes and we’re just really like-minded, especially when it came to this script.”

The pair is also working together on the next Muppets movie. Judging by the hilarious puppet show his character puts on in “Sarah Marshall”—a sort of depressed Neil Diamond-esque vampire musical—Segel seems a perfect fit for the Muppet franchise. He cites “Muppets in Manhattan” as one of his favorite comedies.

As for “Sarah Marshall,” Segel sees the role as a dream come true: “I’ve been trying to be the star of a movie for ten years… I’m finally where I want to be, but I can’t take it too seriously.”