Ted McGinley Talks ‘Shrinking’ Season 2 and What Comes Next for Derek and Liz [Interview]

Actor Ted McGinley, who plays Derek on the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, says he likes to describe his character as an iceberg. In other words, there’s more beneath the surface of Derek than what people might think.

His most recent storyline is just the beginning of allowing viewers to see those layers.

Shrinking Season 2 is testing Derek and Liz’s marriage, with Liz spending time with an ex and eventually kissing him. She tells her husband right away, but Derek’s response allows us to see him as more than the happy-go-lucky character we’ve come to know and love.

I recently had the chance to chat with Ted McGinley about that storyline this season, what’s next for Derek and Liz, and what he loves most about being on Shrinking.

McGinley said Derek’s intense reaction to learning Liz had kissed Mac was because of the trust they’d always shared.

“As sort of surface as maybe people think he is, he’s way deeper,” McGinley said of his character. “I like to describe him as an iceberg, in that, you know, you just see the surface. But below, Derek has this massive foundation of strength and history that he’s earned.”

“So I think the reason Derek was so hurt is that he trusted her. They have a relationship where they have to give each other a lot of rope, and the fact that she would do that knowing how much he disliked Mac and how disappointed — I mean the idea that she would go out on him in any way, it just wasn’t in the conversation ever. So when you see him hurt at a certain level, you realize there’s so much more to Derek.”

Those layers are revealed even further when Derek goes to confront Mac. There’s civility in their conversation, and Derek’s friendly personality plays a part even though he’s so angry and hurt. McGinley described shooting that scene with Josh Hopkins as a “super fun” and “complicated day.”

“There were so many different emotions going on in that scene. It was super complicated. It got cut [down] pretty quick. It’s very tight. There’s a lot of awkward moments in the actual playing of it,” he recalled.

“Josh is an amazing actor. He’s a very generous person. I respect him greatly. I thought he was fantastic in those two episodes,” McGinley continued. He also described the interaction between the two characters as “very adult.”

“I was so anxious to see what we were gonna do, and where this was gonna go, and how threatening it was gonna get. He is just so disarming as a man and a person, and Derek is a guy who sees that and responds to that. I had to go with the way it played as opposed to maybe almost the way it was written. They make so much room for that on our show. The brilliance of these guys and the trust that they have in you is remarkable.”

Ultimately, Derek realizes he played his own part in what happened by not being fully present, and he moves back home. He also invites their children to dinner and they have a sweet family moment.

That doesn’t mean things will be perfect moving forward, but McGinley said he doesn’t think the world wants to see Derek and Liz having marital troubles for very long. 

“At this point, everything is a test. His eyes will be way wider open,” he said. “Bringing the kids in is a restart of, ‘We’re getting back to ground zero. These are the things that we created. This is our family. If we stay here, we’re going to be fine.'”

He added that he thinks Derek feels they’ll be able to get through it, especially after the confrontation with Mac. “It moves rather quick, but it’s not forgotten,” he explained.

McGinley said he was honored to get to play something with that much complexity on Shrinking, and that he loves working on the show because of the balance it has between humor and deeply emotional moments.

“In order to have a show where people are laughing hysterically and then all of the sudden you’re punched in the nose, you don’t expect it. That emotional journey is unbelievable, and I can’t imagine that I get to be a part of something this smart, this clever, this deep at this point in my career. And I just keep pinching myself every day.”

“It is a great place to work. They’re the nicest people. You can tell when you watch the cast together how much they love being with each other. And it’s the same thing when the writers come in the room and the crew is there. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a great space.”

New episodes of Shrinking stream Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

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