Brett Goldstein wants to make the most of this “window” in his career

In the entertainment industry, every job is your last job. This is the mindset that Brett Goldstein held in the early stages of his career, when he was working steadily as both a writer and actor, as well as a podcaster, but also now, after gaining international fame through his work on the hit Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso “He still feels like he has to try as hard as he can.

“I've always been like that, working on 12 things at once,” Goldstein said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “But it took many, many years before anyone saw anything I was working on. There's a window here, and I don't know how long this window will stay open. I might as well make the most of it before it closes. I really love it too. So why shouldn't I do everything except maybe get some sleep and live an emotional life? I can say this as a joke and also mean it: One of the great things about being a workaholic is that you don't have time to stop and be sad.”

And yet one of his most recent projects, the mental health dramedy “Shrinking,” deals with exactly that. The series was created together with his “Ted Lasso” colleagues Bill Lawrence and Jason Segel, who both felt it was important to include Goldstein as a creative partner but also as a co-star.

“Bill had been trying to get me to at least do a cameo, something fun,” Goldstein said. “Then we had written this character for the second season and were about to cast him when Jason brought me and Bill into his trailer and said, 'Why doesn't Brett take this role?'”

Instead of relying on Goldstein's bombastic, curmudgeonly sense of humor, the actor ventures into more dramatic territory in this role, something Lawrence wasn't initially sure about.

“Bill said, 'I don't understand.' But he called me the next morning and said something very sincere,” Goldstein told THR. “He said, 'I think you're a real artist, and if you think you can do it, I'll support you.' It was scary, but fuck it, let's try it. Anything scary you should probably do.”

As for plans to return for the now official fourth season of Ted Lasso, Goldstein has no idea what to expect and was surprised like everyone else when he heard the show was coming.

“I really don’t know anything,” he said. “There will soon be a plan that will be put into action, but so far the plan has not been put into action.”

Season 2 of “Shrinking” premieres October 16 on Apple TV+.