Shrinking's Michael Urie Talks Brian's Wedding Plans After That Absolute Disaster of a Proposal Party
Projectile vomiting aside, Brian and Charlie’s engagement on last week’s Shrinking was really quite lovely.
And now that Jimmy’s drunken (and disgusting) contribution to the surprise proposal has been cleaned up, we figured it’s time to check in with Michael Urie to get the scoop on how Brian’s romantic plans will pan out in the remainder of the season. Will everything actually go his way? Read on as the Ugly Betty alum gives us the scoop on Episode 7 — which starts streaming Friday on Apple TV+ — and beyond.
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TVLINE | When we meet Brian, he’s got a lot of stuff going on underneath his “everything goes my way” mantra, and I love how his issues take a minute to reveal themselves. Do you think that’s an accurate kind of take on his progression over the first six episodes or so?
Totally. And there’s something about this year of not being around his best friend, who’s also a therapist, and what that must have done to him…I mean, Jimmy’s sort of the middle of the story, and there’s all these people who know each other because of him.
[In Episode 5], my character sort of opens up to Gaby, Jessica Williams’ character. That’s who he needed, and he didn’t have her, either, because of Jimmy. They’re all grieving Tia, Jimmy’s wife. They all knew her, and they all loved her. She was the glue that held them all together. And so Jimmy taking a year to start the process of grief was kind of forced on everyone else, too.
TVLINE | The other thing that strikes me is that they’re all doing their best! Like, none of them are acting in bad faith about anything.
Yeah. They’re all trying so hard, all trying to love each other. It’s so hard.
TVLINE | Let’s talk about your scenes with Harrison Ford because first of all, they’re great. And second, intimidating at all?
I mean, yeah. [Laughs] I was more intimidated to meet him in the first place. I met him and once like we had a, you know, I think our first scene together was just the two of us. I’d seen him around enough, and then, you know, on set and seen him on his bicycle. And zooming around in a — he drives a golf cart faster than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life.
I could tell that he loves acting, you know what I mean? You don’t do this for that long and work as hard as he does and as often as he does if you don’t really love it. He said this to me at one point, he was like — you know, he believes in “one for them, one for me,” — and he’s like, “This one’s for me.” Like, “This is some of the best writing I’ve [had].”
…And you know, he likes to pretend to be a crank and be gruff and all those things that like they write to in the show, but he’s actually really sweet — and you can get him talking. Even when he gets talking, he doesn’t like to, he likes to make people laugh and he likes to, you know, have a zinger, but you can get him going and talking about the old days a little bit… After we’d been doing it, our first day, our first scene we’d been doing it for a little while, I said, you know, you’re very good at this. And he said, [does Ford impression] “You thought I was just a pretty face?”
TVLINE
| Episode 6 was a big one for Brian. I felt for him, having his big moment ruined by Jimmy’s disgusting vomitpalooza.
[Laughs] Oh, my God, yes. Yes. Total fun, and seeing Harrison stoned.
TVLINE | I hope I never have to watch that scene at the piano again.
Projectile vomiting is so upsetting.
TVLINE | But then you have this beautiful, sweet moment after it. What can you tease about what we’ll see in the rest of the season for Brian?
Well, for Brian, the rest of the season is about this marriage. It’s getting married to his love and figuring out what that means and how that works. You can imagine that Brian puts a lot of stock into his wedding, and he’s very excited about it. So, there’s some wedding planning. Some things go wrong, things go right. Our awesome costume designer Allyson [B. Fanger] was so great with Devin [Kawaoka], who plays my partner, and me. We came up with some great looks for the wedding, and we talked a lot about what we thought the wedding might be like.
And so, you know, it’s leading towards this idea of a wedding. I don’t want to give too much away, but the back half of the season for me is wedding stuff.
Launch Gallery: <i>Shrinking</i>: 5 Reasons Why <i>Ted Lasso</i> Fans Should Try Apple's Latest Comedy
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