Jason Segel is opening up about why he left Hollywood after the success of how I Met Your Mother.
The actor made a recent appearance on Today show, in which Hoda Kotb brought up Segel's decision to move out of Los Angeles once the CBS sitcom ended in 2014. “You did something so interesting,” she said. “A lot of people would have just made a big splash in Hollywood, but you did something else. You've raised the stakes and walked away from it all. Why did you do it?”
“I was really roaring twenties,” the Shrinking the star and co-creator responded. “I had how I Met Your Mother and I was also writing a lot of films that were successful and did well.
However, due to his busy schedule working with how I Met Your Mother and films like those from 2008 Forgetting Sarah MarshallSegel realized he wasn't “doing a lot of personal check-ins.”
“I realized that art should be a reflection of what you're going through and I really wasn't going through much life-wise,” he added. It was then that he decided to change his environment to hopefully create a sense of peace in his life.
“I moved from Los Angeles,” Segel said. “I moved to a small country town and started asking myself questions like, 'What do you really like? What are you really thinking about right now? Who do you want to be as a performer and artist?'”
THE This is the end the actor had already told Los Angeles Times in June 2023 that he had moved to Ojai, California, a small town in Ventura County.
“Being there had the really interesting side effect of realizing – after six weeks, mind you – that, 'Oh, my God. I finally feel calm,'” he said at the time. “And it occurred to me that when you do this job and live in Los Angeles, you never leave campus.”
Segel continued, “So it was a whole new experience to realize that when someone outside of Hollywood asks, 'What are you doing?' they mean, like, right now. So the answer is, 'Oh. I'm going to the grocery store,' not 'I have three projects in development.'”