Five Questions for Jason Segel

So, what do you think about historic preservation?

Actor Jason Segel is in Ann Arbor this summer for the shoot of a movie called “Five Year Engagement.” With our focus on civics and government affairs, interviews with celebrities are not exactly in The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s wheelhouse. But we wanted to be prepared to interview Mr. Segel, in case we stumble across him.

So we developed five can’t-fail interview questions that respect both Mr. Segel’s vocation as well as our commitment to The Chronicle’s editorial mission.

  1. The movie you’re shooting in Ann Arbor is called “Five Year Engagement.” Five years does seem like a long time for an engagement, but not that long for a street repair tax. Ann Arbor’s five-year street repair millage expires at the end of this year. Based on your experience with Ann Arbor roads, what are your thoughts on renewing this millage?
  2. In the television series, “How I Met Your Mother,” you play an attorney, Marshall Eriksen. In a recent episode, Marshall did work for a client who wanted to demolish a historic building. In light of that checkered past, have you perceived any resentment directed your way by residents of Ann Arbor’s many historic districts?
  3. You recently starred in the movie “Gulliver’s Travels” with Jack Black. Have Ann Arbor’s urban fairy doors given you nightmarish flashbacks to that experience?
  4. Your movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is set in the island paradise of Hawaii, and includes scenes of the ocean and all the wonder of the tropics. Based on any plans and drawings you might have seen of the planned Argo Dam by-pass channel – which will allow for canoeists to circumnavigate the dam without needing to portage, and will allow people to ride inner tubes down a cascading series of pools – and based on the possible (but unlikely) continuation of tax credits for the film industry in Michigan, can you estimate the probability that in the future you would choose to shoot a movie like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in Ann Arbor? [Alternate question: Sarah Marshall and Marshall Eriksen – is that a coincidence? Don't make us file a FOIA request to find this out.]
  5. You starred in the short-lived television show “Freaks and Geeks,” about a group of high school friends living in a Detroit suburb. Your character, Nick Andopolis, was a marijuana user. What are your views on Ann Arbor’s proposed zoning restriction that would limit the location of medical marijuana dispensaries by creating a 1000-foot buffer around schools?

2 Comments

  1. By Brian
    June 9, 2011 at 11:08 am | permalink

    Just another reason we appreciate the work you do!

    [link to Washington Post article]

  2. By Rod Johnson
    June 9, 2011 at 4:45 pm | permalink

    Nothing on the “full faith and credit” provision of the Tax Increment Financing Authority Act (Section 125.1812), or his thoughts on when closed sessions are permissible to consider pending litigation under the Open Meetings Act? What a bunch of fluff. What is this, US magazine?