On Friday Cindy and I went to see actor Jason Segel discuss his new middle-grade novel (cowritten with Kirsten Miller) Nightmares! The sold-out event was sponsored by the Harvard Book Store and the nonprofit writing organization 826 Boston (program coordinator Karen Sama led the conversation with Segel). Cindy loves How I Met Your Mother (even the ending!), I love Freaks & Geeks, and we both love The Muppets. Segel is also the guy you may have seen naked in the very funny Saving Sarah Marshall (which he also wrote), and he was one of the bromantic leads in I Love You, Man.



Nightmares! is his first children's book, and he kicked off the event by asking everyone in the audience under age fourteen to raise their hands (there were a few). Later on he asked for kid volunteers to come up and read aloud from the book, instead of reading himself, which could have backfired but was awesome. "I'm like the Pied Piper," Segel quipped as a girl named Tessa, two boys named Sam, and a cutie little one named Lucas came up onstage to read. Afterward he told them, appreciatively, "You're so much braver than I would have been at that age."



The audience participation didn't stop there. He asked people to share their nightmares; his as a kid involved a witch nibbling his toes ("because I have delectable toes") and being chased around Dracula's castle ("it was more Rococo than I would have thought") which happened so frequently that he discovered a secret room where he could hang out and play video games. (Side note, and there were a lot of those: as a kid, Segel wore a Superman cape under his clothes "just in case" and carried the MYST game book around with him. Also? He's been 6'4'' since age 12 and the other kids used to jump on his back and chant "Ride the oaf!")

And then there was the singing. During the Q&A a woman nervously asked: "What's your favorite show tune?" "It's gotta be the confrontation from Les Miz. Do you know it?" "Um, yes (giggle giggle)." "Ok, do you want to do it? Which part are you going to sing?" She chose Javert, and Jason sang his heart out as Jean Valjean (here's how he did it with Neil Patrick Harris). The evening ended on an amazing note for fans with Segel at the piano doing the Dracula song ("'Die... die... die...' 'I cahhn't'").



If this guy isn't the nicest, most genuine-seeming Everydude in Hollywood, well, he must be a truly great actor (slash-master-manipulator), because he seemed really thrilled ("This is so much fun! Seeing those kids read up there, that's the coolest thing ever") and humbled to be there — even after a two-hour-plus signing line that Cindy waited on. Any "grown man" (he was in his late twenties at the time) who "burst into tears" upon seeing Kermit the Frog "in person" and who also cried while sitting in "kind of a rough pub in London" after finishing Winnie-the-Pooh is a-ok in my book. I'll even forgive his publicist for ignoring my Five Questions request *cough cough.* Jason Segel, we love you, man.

Quotable dude

Nightmares! was originally a screenplay I wrote at age 21, after Freaks & Geeks ended and I was unemployed and thinking, "I'm going to have to live with my parents forever."

When I was a kid, movies like Labyrinth and The Goonies and Roald Dahl's books made me believe I might find buried treasure. There's still magic out there. You can catch a kid at the right age to say: don't forget there's magic...Kids' imaginations are so much better than what you can put onscreen.

My mentor Judd Apatow said to me, "You're kind of a weird dude." Also [after Segel played him the Dracula song] he said: "Don't ever play that for anyone else ever again."

I'm willing to sit through the fear of doing something badly to get to passable. I tell myself: "I'm bad at this... right now"...The only thing I'm afraid of is being unprepared.

Coraline really scared me, and I'm a grown man!

Audience question: Who was your favorite actor growing up? Answer: Kermit. When you're a kid, Kermit is Tom Hanks, Jimmy Stewart.

I wrote The Muppets when I was in London. With all those double-decker buses and furry hats, it's a very Muppet-y place...The Muppets are Monty Python to a kid.

I did a Muppets screening at the White House and got to meet Barack Obama. He shook my hand and said, "I love you, man," and I said, "I love you too, Mr. President!" It gets worse. Then I said, "You should come to the screening. There will be free snacks," and he said, "Yeah, that's what I'm missing. Not being able to get free snacks."

At the screenings, we'd have people fill out questionnaires -- what did you like about the movie, what didn't you like. Oh, and my character's name was Gary. People said, I liked the music. I liked the story. I liked the puppets. One kid wrote: The thing I didn't like: Gary's face. I mean...it's my face! What can I do?