Jason Segel

Jason Jordan Segel (/ˈsiːɡəl/ SEE-gal; born January 18, 1980) is an American actor, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his role as Marshall Eriksen in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother from 2005 to 2014. He began his career with director and producer Judd Apatow on the television series Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000) and Undeclared (2001–2002) before gaining prominence for his leading roles in various successful comedy films in which he has starred, written, and produced.

Segel's comedic films include Knocked Up (2007), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), I Love You, Man (2009), Bad Teacher (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), This Is 40 (2012), and Sex Tape (2014), as well as family films such as Despicable Me (2010), and The Muppets (2011). For his role as David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour (2015) he received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. He also starred in the dramas Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), The Discovery (2017), Our Friend (2019), and Windfall (2022). From 2022 to 2023, he played the role of Paul Westhead in the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

In 2023, he began starring as Jimmy Laird, a therapist in the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, which he also co-created alongside Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein. For his performance, he was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Segel was born on January 18, 1980, in Santa Monica, California, to Jillian (née Jordan; born 1952) and Alvin Segel, a lawyer. He grew up in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. He has an older brother, Adam, and a younger sister, Alison.

Segel's father is Jewish, whereas his mother is of English, Scottish, Irish, and French descent. He has stated that he was raised Jewish, as well as "a little bit of everything". Segel went to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony. He also attended St. Matthew's Parish School, a private Episcopal school.

Following elementary school and middle school, Segel completed his high school studies at Harvard-Westlake School, where his 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) frame helped him as an active member of the 1996 and 1997 CIF state champion boys' basketball team. He won a slam dunk contest in high school and he was nicknamed "Dr. Dunk." He was a backup to the team's star center, Jason Collins, who went on to play in the NBA.

Segel's first major role was as stoner "freak" Nick Andopolis on the critically acclaimed but short-lived 1999 NBC comedy-drama series Freaks and Geeks. The series revolved around a group of suburban Detroit high school students circa 1980. Segel personally composed a song for his character, Nick, to sing to the lead female character, Lindsay (Linda Cardellini).

Segel had recurring roles on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Neil Jansen and on Undeclared as Eric. He played Marshall Eriksen on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother; he had previously stated he would move on to other projects in 2013 when his contract expired, but was convinced to finish the series after its ninth season in 2014.