“Shrinking” has added longtime, award-wining actor Michael J. Fox to its cast lineup for Season 3 of the hit Apple TV+ series. This is one of the first projects the actor has starred in since his return to acting.
Details about Fox’s character are being kept under wraps, but his casting marks a reunion between Fox and “Shrinking” co-creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence, as Fox was the lead star on Lawrence’s breakout series. “Spin City.”
The cast of “Shrinking” Season 3 also includes previously announced additions Jeff Daniels, who will guest star as Jimmy’s father, Sherry Cola and Isabella Gomez.
His role in the show will end his five-year on-screen retirement from acting after he decided to step away from the craft due to his struggles with Parkinson’s disease. During an interview in Far Out Magazine, Lawrence credited Fox, who he referred to as his “mentor,” for influencing “Shrinking’s” Parkinson’s disease plot.
“It’s cool to get to write about things you care about now,” Lawrence told the magazine, adding that Fox was “so inspiring with the way he took it in stride.” “And Michael J Fox is my first mentor. So we wanted to represent it in hopefully an inspiring and not sad or tragic way.”
The hit Primetime Emmy-nominated series follows the story of a “grieving therapist Jimmy (Jason Segel) who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives … including his own.”
Regular stars include Segel, Christa Miller, Emmy Award nominee Jessica Williams, Luke Tennie, Michael Urie, Lukita Maxwell and Ted McGinley.
“Shrinking” is produced for Apple TV+ by Warner Bros. Television, where Lawrence and Goldstein are under overall deals along with Lawrence’s Doozer Productions. Lawrence, Segel, Goldstein, Neil Goldman, James Ponsoldt, Jeff Ingold, Liza Katzer, Randall Winston, Annie Mebane, Rachna Fruchbom and Brian Gallivan all served as executive producers on Season 2. Ashley Nicole Black and Bill Posley serve as executive producers on Season 3.
