Harrison Ford stars in ‘Shrinking’ and creator Brett Goldstein still can’t believe it

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — For decades, audiences have been used to seeing Harrison Ford star in blockbuster action films, zipping through space in “Star Wars,” or taking viewers along on his heroic “Indiana Jones” adventures.

So when “Ted Lasso” writer and star Brett Goldstein had his eye on casting Ford in his AppleTV+ comedy “Shrinking,” the idea, he said on a segment of Variety’s Actors on Actors published Wednesday, felt “so unrealistic.”

Turns out, all he had to do was get the script in front of Ford.

“His agent read it and liked it and then sent it to him and then he wanted to do it,” Goldstein recalled, later adding that Ford’s agent requested a meeting with Goldstein or “Shrinking” co-creator Bill Lawrence before closing the deal.

The twists and turns began with Ford’s attempt at scheduling a time to meet with Goldstein, who admitted that he missed Ford’s first call (but noted that he still has the voicemail saved).

When Ford suggested they meet on a Saturday night while they were both in London, Goldstein said he wasn’t available because he had a stand-up gig. He laughed while retelling the phone call he had with Lawrence, who told Goldstein “you cancel the gig, it’s Harrison Ford!”

Alas, the “Ted Lasso” star kept the gig on his calendar and found a Friday night that worked for Ford, but the pressure was on.

“I got there and everyone’s calling me from America like don’t f— this up. This is on you. Close this deal,” he said.

Ford told Goldstein that “Shrinking” was the best script and dialogue he’d ever read, a complement so unbelievable to Goldstein that he thought, “this is really embarrassing, he thinks I’m someone else.”

After fishing the “Shrinking” script out of a pile of scripts on Ford’s coffee table, just to confirm it was what he was talking about for good measure, Ford confirmed the unbelievable.

“And I go, ‘oh, do you want to be in it?’ And he goes, ‘yeah.’ And I go, ‘is that business done?’ And he goes, ‘looks like it… Let’s eat!’” he shared, going on to say they spent the rest of the evening talking shop over dinner.

Goldstein was gobsmacked, saying, “it was so easy, it was a joke.”

“Shrinking” is Goldstein’s follow up to “Ted Lasso,” which just ended, and stars Ford, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Jason Tenie and Christa Miller and debuted on AppleTV+ in January.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.