Over two seasons of Shrinking, Jessica Williams’ character Gaby has grown into someone who knows herself and what she wants. As a result, Gaby’s character progression has reignited fan interest in her relationship with Jimmy (Jason Segel) after the pair had a messy hook-up in season 1.
Ahead of season 3 airing on January 28, Jessica spoke to WHO about fans shipping the relationship, her character’s new beau Derrick (played by Damon Wayans Jr.) and how she feels about predicting Gaby’s fate.
What does Jessica Williams think about fans shipping Gaby and Jimmy?
When asked whether she and Segel have discussed the renewed fan reaction to Gaby and Jimmy potentially dating again, Williams’ response is loud and clear.
“How funny? No,” she told WHO. She said trying to steer or judge a character’s choices is not how she approaches acting.
“I think with acting, it is counterintuitive to judge your character’s choices and to be like, ‘it should be this way’ because there is like a team of 12 brains called writers that are talking about it and working on it, and they’re mapping it out – that’s their job.”
Rather than focusing on where the relationship might lead, Williams keeps her attention firmly on the scene in front of her.
Shrinking, she says, operates as a finely tuned collaborative system.
“When you work on a show like this that is actually a machine, I’m just a small part of this huge machine,” she explains. “It’s up to me to just play the part on the day. I have the lines, I want to play them to the best of my ability, and I’m going to be present for the other actor.”
That focus allows her to tune out speculation once the work is done.
“But when I do a scene, the only thing I focus on is doing the scene to the best of my ability, everything else is kind of none of my business.”
By trusting the writers and the ensemble, Williams frees herself to focus on the performance – and her life beyond the show.
“I don’t need to focus on the plot because there are really talented people doing that,” she says. “Hollywood works when we are all dependent on each other, we are so many co-operating unions and we are one team, and there’s something really freeing about not micro-managing people,” she told WHO.
The one thing Jessica Williams won’t talk to Harrison Ford about
Williams says she would trust any of them to give her honest advice and gushed over her fellow Shrinking co-stars, but admitted there’s one thing she wouldn’t approach Harrison Ford about.
“We all really like each other and make each other laugh, and I love the people that I act with, but Harrison keeps it real a lot.”
However, she quipped: “But I’m not going to talk to him about my boyfriend, I would just rather die. But like maybe I’d ask him about reupholstering a chair or something.”
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