The One Scene That Made Jason Segel Uncomfortable In Our Friend
Jason Segel has done some pretty outlandish stuff in the name of comedy over the years, but one scene in his most recent film crossed a line for him.
Segel, who spent nine seasons as the lovable, goofy Marshall Eriksen on CBS' How I Met Your Mother and has branched out in the years since the series came to an end, has been pretty daring on screen, from singing alongside Muppets in his 2011 Muppets movie or going pantless and performing a Dracula musical (in separate scenes) in his 2008 romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. However, in Segel's latest film, he finds a new edge of his comfort zone: stand-up comedy.
In Our Friend, which casts Segel as Dane, who drops everything to be with his two closest friends — Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck — when one of them is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Segel had to do stand-up comedy... and found it pretty nerve-wracking. Here's the one scene in Our Friend that made star Jason Segel super uncomfortable.
Stand-up comedy isn't in Jason Segel's comfort zone
Speaking to CinemaBlend, Segel revealed that a scene where his character, Dane, performs stand-up comedy pushed him to his limits... especially because the performance isn't supposed to be very good.
"Man, I was so embarrassed doing that standup sequence," the Freaks & Geeks alum revealed. "I don't do standup and I also knew it needed to be mediocre standup and doing a mediocre performance is kind of my nightmare and so I wrote three or four jokes and they are so bad, they are so bad."
"I may have gotten up in a different context like hosting something and told a few jokes, but no I've never gotten on stage and said 'I'm Jason Segel, and I'm here to entertain you... with comedy,' so it was really uncomfortable," Segel continued.
Stand-up aside, Segel has considerable talent both in front of and behind the camera; in addition to his writing work on both The Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the performer recently wowed audiences by creating and starring in the 2020 AMC mystery box series Dispatches from Elsewhere.
Our Friend, including that stand-up scene, is available to rent on major streaming platforms now.