Jason Segel has some interesting Freaks and Geeks audition scoops to share!
In an interview with GQ, the How I met your mother actor revisits his audition for the popular high school drama and how both him and Franco were competing for the same role.
Freaks and Geeks, which aired on NBC from 1999 to 2000 follows the life of overachiever mathlete Lindsay Weir, played by Linda Cardellini, and her “Freaks” group including Nick Andopolis, Daniel Desario.
While her nerdy younger brother Sam, played by John Francis Daley, navigates freshman year with his outcast friends called “Geeks."
In the show, Segel played Nick Andopolis while Franco ended up portraying the ‘bad boy’ of the show, Daniel Desario.
The 44-year-old recalled how he was called back with Franco where they competed for the same role as in the original script, noting that Daniel and Nick were one character initially.
Segel continued to share how the show creators liked both of them and that's how the teen drama got both the characters, noting, “They liked us both, and they split the part, and he became the cool one, and I became the goofy one.”
Freaks and Geeks, created by Paul Feig, was cancelled during its first season, though now in the age of streaming services it has gained extreme popularity.
Previously, Judd Apatow, the executive producer of the show in 2017, shared with Deadline how they won’t be rebooting Freaks and Greeks as the show was created in the “pre-computer and cellphone age” which would be difficult to portray in the current internet-obsessed world.
Apatow concluded the revival discussion with the statement, “we said all we had to say.”
