An Open Letter to Jason Segel

Saturday, April 19, 2008 in Big News Writers, Editorial, Humor, News, News & Commentary, News In Brief, The Biz
Tags: Charles Gibson, Ed, Edward Albee, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Freaks and Geeks, Friends, frontal nudity, How I Met Your Mother, Jason Segel, Judd Apatow, Lost in Space, Matt LeBlanc, Pacific Palisades, Paramount Pictures, Richland New Jersey, Roseanne, St. Augustine Prep, Vineland New Jersey, Zoo Story

Jason:

Congrats on Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Writing and starring in a comedy produced by Judd Apatow? Nice job, especially for the third male lead on an ensemble sitcom with mediocre ratings. (Matt LeBlanc never got any better than “Ed” and “Lost in Space.”) The reviews are good, and you’ve been getting a lot of press. And apparently, in the start of the movie, you show your wang. Something that’s come up in the first paragraph of just about every article on the movie. Over, and over, and over again.

But this open letter isn’t about your schlong, Jason. If you move to lead from third banana by showing your banana, good on you. This open letter is about the other common motif in the articles about you. The tough times in your career that you’ve finally vanquished to get to this point.

It seems that after “Freaks and Geeks” you went through a bit of a dry spell, and you sold screenplays that never got made, and Judd wrote a part for you in The 40-Year-Old Virgin but the studio didn’t approve you, and you stuck it out and now you and your johnson are starring in a movie. So it seems like the prototypical story of the young actor finally hitting it big after years of struggle, in a vehicle he wrote for himself. And with most of today’s box office comedy leads pushing 40 – or over it – and the industry looking for the next generation of funnymen who can carry a picture – you just may have written yourself a box office hit you can ride to the A-list.

But that’s not quite the whole story.

You see, Jason, the “years of hardship” and “struggling actor” bit is undercut by a few of the other details in your bio. Particularly this one:

A Los Angeles native, Segel was “noticed” when Paramount’s president of casting happened to be in the audience of his high-school production of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” which Segel says he was putting on “for almost no reason at all.”

Funny thing is, I too did a production of “Zoo Story” in high school. And it too was for almost no reason at all. Actually, we never actually performed it; we didn’t have a drama program – it was just a project my English teacher put on – and I couldn’t stand the guy playing Jerry, so things just kind of petered off. But I guarantee you this: if we had managed to put the production on, one person who would not have been sitting in the auditorium of St. Augustine Prep in Richland, New Jersey was the president of casting for Paramount Pictures.

You see, Jason, it’s hard for too many of us out here in the trenches who didn’t grow up in wealthy Los Angeles suburbs, and who weren’t members of state champion basketball teams, and who didn’t go to a high school where a teacher could recommend you to the head of casting for a major studio, to really view your situation as a struggle. You starred in a TV show at 19 that gave you the crucial professional relationships that furthered the rest of your career; you sold your first screenplay at 21; and at 25 you began a three years and counting run as a series regular on a well-regarded network sitcom. You’ve made enough money to buy “a Gothic mansion carved into the hill behind the Chateau Marmont.” . Sure, during a year or two the roles may have been a little sparse, but even then you were still working more than, oh, 98% of my friends. And I’m fairly certain that Judd Apatow isn’t actively trying to get my friends leads in major motion pictures, after which he can sleep.

And if everything fell apart – you could still run home and live with the folks in Pacific Palisades, and presumably regroup and continue pursuing the career. Whereas I’d find the commute to auditions pretty tough from Vineland, New Jersey.

Maybe that’s why your “everyman” character in “Sarah Marshall” isn’t a cubicle drone, or a mechanic, or a high school teacher, but a composer for a TV crime show. And the girlfriend who dumps him isn’t a barista, or a day care worker, or a legal secretary, but the star of that TV crime show. Not exactly Roseanne and Dan Connor in the “everyman” category, Jason. (Although Charles Gibson would probably consider that TV composer to be “middle class.”)

Look, I don’t mean to begrudge your success one bit. And I don’t mean to denigrate whatever personal struggle you’ve had. It’s no easy task to complete a screenplay, let alone get one produced. But let’s not pretend that someone who got discovered at 16, got a TV series at 19, got a second TV series at 25, and at 28 is the lead in a major motion picture is somehow an everyman. What you are, Jason, is one lucky son of a bitch. You are, to be blunt, privileged. And haven’t we had enough of guys born into privilege passing themselves off as everymen?

And that, Jason, is nothing to shake a dick at.

Your pal,

Mike