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Getting to work with wife Christa Miller has some perks for Bill Lawrence but there are also certain cons — such as watching her kiss other men.
“I don’t like that at all,” Lawrence, 55, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, December 12, at PaleyLive’s An Evening of Shrinking program at WGA Theater.
Despite it sometimes being “upsetting” for Lawrence, the couple find joking about the situation off screen helps ease the awkwardness. That approach has most recently come into play for Lawrence’s current show Shrinking, where Miller is married to on screen husband Ted McGinley.
“We do [joke], because I felt personally betrayed,” Lawrence quipped. “Because in the writers’ room we joke around that Ted McGinley is playing me and so then when bad things are happening and she’s not respecting her husband — I take it personally. Even if I’m involved in writing.”
Lawrence and Miller, 60, have collaborated many times since getting married in 1999. Miller, who shares kids Charlotte, 24, William, 21, and Henry, 18, with her husband, has appeared on Lawrence projects Scrubs, Clone High, Cougar Town and Shrinking.
“Bill definitely sets the tone [on set]. Any show I’ve worked on with Bill — down to cast and crew — Bill has a no a—– policy. I know other people like to go along with that and say that, but Bill really has it,” Miller told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. “And a lot of the crew I’ve worked with for many, many years. Bill has people on the crew that he works with all the time. I feel very safe on his set.”
Miller gushed over Lawrence’s dedication to making every set a fun workplace environment.
“Bill sets up a situation — and [Shrinking cocreator and star] Jason [Segel] does this as well — where they try to say things that are going to embarrass you, and we don’t have to use it,” she recalled. “Once you do that a few times and you know that nothing bad will happen if you try something and it doesn’t work, you can lay your heart out.”
Shrinking, which premiered in 2023, stars Segel as a grieving therapist named Jimmy who decides to become drastically more involved in his patients’ lives as he mourns the death of his wife and learns to parent as a single father. Miller’s character, meanwhile, is Jimmy’s next-door neighbor who often gets involved in his life.
“My wife in real life is slightly meaner than her character, so it’s been fun,” Lawrence joked to Us on Thursday before clarifying, “No. She’s so respectful and she’s so cool. Not a lot of guys get to tell their spouse what to wear and what to say. So the fact that I do that makes it more tolerable and I’m not wearing a single item of clothing that I picked out for myself and I’m not allowed to make any decisions in my real life.”
While discussing Shrinking‘s success, Lawrence explained how the hit Apple TV+ series manages to balance light-hearted story lines with more serious topics such as mental health.
“The cool thing is, we’ve got some many cool writers and performers. We try really hard to call from real life stories,” he shared with Us. “[Cocreator] Brett [Goldstein] will tell you too — and Jason — how the central premise of the show is lifted from a real story.”
Lawrence continued: “So I think when you’re talking about, whether it’s Brett and I dealing with family members who have Parkinson’s or people that have dealt with the grief of losing someone in their family, when you start with that authenticity, than you’re allowed to do goofy things and get broad. Look, all I do is steal people’s lives from around.”
New episodes of Shrinking premiere on Apple TV+ every Wednesday.
With reporting by Lanae Brody
