2025 is a big year for Jason Segel, as he has been nominated for two Emmys, including his first ever as a producer for Apple TV+ comedy Shrinking. It is also the 25th anniversary of the cult classic drama Freaks and Geeks, which launched the careers of Jason, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Busy Philipps, John Francis Daley, Martin Starr, and Linda Cardellini, and Jason told HELLO! that it is "totally wild" to consider that it has been over two decades since he broke into the industry.
"It was this time where – I think about this a lot because I try to recapture it sometimes – but we had the naivety of youth, and we didn't understand that [making television] was so hard," he said, speaking at the inaugural Televerse Festival. "We weren't strategic. We thought, 'Why can't you make a movie that ends with a puppet musical?' We didn't understand that that's hard to do, and so we just did these things and I try to remember [because] I want to be that guy."
Set during 1980, the show follows Lindsay Weir (Grey's Anatomy star Linda) and her younger brother, Sam (Bones actor John), who attend William McKinley High School in a fictional suburb of Detroit. Lindsay is friends with the "freaks" while Sam's friends, Neal Schweiber and Bill Haverchuck, are known as the "geeks." However, Lindsay attempts to transform her life by becoming friends with the rebellious "slackers," leading to friction between her friends, her family, and her own self-image.
The final episode sees the freaks and the geeks realize that they have more in common than they first thought, while Lindsay, who has received an invitation to an academic summit at the University of Michigan, is gifted a copy of the Grateful Dead's American Beauty album, and instead of attending the summit skips town for a series of Grateful Dead concerts in Colorado.
Only 15 of the 18 episodes aired, between 1999 and 2000; it was created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow.
Jason, who has gone on to work with Judd and his co-stars in comedies such as Knocked Up (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), and This Is 40 (2012), now stars as therapist Jamie Laird in the comedy Shrinking alongside Harrison Ford.
Jason is nominated for Lead Actor in a Comedy, and he is also up against his long-time friend Seth, who is nominated for his work in the breakout comedy The Studio, also for Apple TV+.
"Seth and I started at the same time, and to end up in the same place at this moment is really, really special," shared Jason.