Jason Segel
Jason Jordan Segel (/ˈsiːɡəl/ SEE-gəl; born January 18, 1980) is an American actor. 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.
Jason Segel
- Actor
- writer
- musician
1998–present
Segel has starred in many comedic films such as 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 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 a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.
Early life[edit]
Segel was born on January 18, 1980, in Santa Monica, California, to Jillian (née Jordan; born 1952) and Alvin Segel, a lawyer.[1][2][3][4] He grew up in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.[5] He has an older brother, Adam,[1][6] and a younger sister, Alison.[7]
Segel's father is Jewish,[8][9][10] whereas his mother is of English, Scottish, Irish, and French descent.[11] He has stated that he was raised Jewish,[12] as well as "a little bit of everything".[13] Segel went to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and also attended St. Matthew's Parish School, a private Episcopal school.[9][14][15]
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.[16][17] He won a slam dunk contest in high school[18] and he was nicknamed "Dr. Dunk."[19] He was a backup to the team's star center, Jason Collins, who went on to play in the NBA.[16]
Personal life[edit]
Segel is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church.[41] He performed a wedding ceremony on The Tonight Show on July 6, 2010, for a couple that solicited his services by placing pictures of him around his hometown and the bar he frequently visited.[42]
Segel dated his Freaks and Geeks co-star Linda Cardellini for several years following the show's cancellation.[43] He dated Michelle Williams from 2012 to 2013.[44] From December 2013 to April 2021, Segel dated photographer Alexis Mixter.[45][46]