Jason Segel talks new movie 'Our Friend' and why he stopped doing comedy

Jason Segel talks to Yahoo Entertainment about his latest film, Our Friend, also starring Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson. Segel also opens up about why he stopped doing comedies.

Video transcript

JASON SEGEL: It's pretty scary to come up here. I have a friend who's been wanting to try stand-up but--

[LAUGHTER]

He's never done it. He's a-- he's a little chicken.

KEVIN POLOWY: What are the most important things you look at when choosing projects these days? And what did Our Friend offer in that regard?

JASON SEGEL: I mean, I think that one of the first things I look at is who I would get to work with. Like will this be something that I learn from? What kind of experience will it be?

I've started to realize as I get older that this is actual time in my life, when I go to make something. And so what am I going to devote three months of my life to this year, where I learn something? And is it a story that, if I participate in telling, it will bring something to the story?

And when I read this, I felt like, first of all, the story was really an amazing framing of tragedy, to turn something so sad into a story of friendship that is often-- I mean, like you said, it's heart wrenching, but it's also funny and uplifting. That's a really hard thing to pull off.

- We're not going to tell the girls that I'm dying yet, OK?

KEVIN POLOWY: The film obviously deals with some very heavy material here. Dakota Johnson plays this terminally ill woman with two young daughters. It's absolutely devastating to watch, especially as a father with two daughters around the same age. I mean, how weighty or emotional was this one for you to film?

JASON SEGEL: It was weighty and emotional to film. We were shooting in the real town-- Fairhope, Alabama, where Matt and Nicole lived. And so the town knew Nicole, and they knew the story that we were telling, and were really supportive. And some participated as well in some of these group scenes. So I think it was really cathartic for everybody. That was emotional.

I know Dakota really well and care about Dakota tremendously. I've known her since her early 20s. So her performance is so transformative, that watching her go through such a tragedy was hard to go through, side by side with her, when we were acting, yeah.

KEVIN POLOWY: And then there's Casey Affleck. I mean, Manchester by the Sea and now this. I mean, I don't know what it is about him and just making movies that just, like, emotionally demolish you. But like the most visceral film viewing experiences I've had in recent years.

JASON SEGEL: Wow. Yeah, well, you know, listen, he's like, you know, one of the best actors on the planet. I think that's it as simple as that. And so this story is a high-wire act of the lightness of friendship and the buoyancy of these relationships against the backdrop of the greatest tragedy you'll go through. And so he was just perfect for it.

KEVIN POLOWY: It's been a minute since we've seen you in a comedy, which you made, obviously, like so consistently for many years, for a large chunk of your career. Has that been a conscious shift on your part? Like what's kept you away from comedy in more recent years?

JASON SEGEL: So I want to do comedies as well. But like you said, I did about a decade and a half of pure comedy between those movies and then How I Met Your Mother, which was literally every day for nine years. I think I was just interested in seeing what else I could do.

KEVIN POLOWY: I think the last time we spoke was for Sex Tape, it was you and Cameron.

JASON SEGEL: Oh, my gosh.

KEVIN POLOWY: It was one of the last movies she did. I think it was your last comedy. Like, what was it about that movie that just scared you guys off?

[LAUGHTER]

JASON SEGEL: Yes.

KEVIN POLOWY: Just stick with it, I'm sure.

JASON SEGEL: Listen, you know, I just think that that for me, there was a moment around that period. Because that was also right when How I Met Your Mother ended, where I was like, OK, I have a blank canvas ahead of me now, sort of artificially. And the show came to its natural end.

Sex Tape. Sex Tape ended up actually doing well, I think. But it didn't feel good. And so I got to look-- I got to look forward and say, you actually-- this is freedom. You can do anything now.

So why don't we walk right into some of the looming questions. Like, what if I tried to do just a drama? What if I tried to write and create and run a TV show? You know, like all of these things that I'd-- I wanted to bump up against my limits, which I hadn't done in a long time.

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