"I was happy that they were able to squeeze me onto it," the Emmy-winning actress tells PEOPLE about her guest appearance on the Apple TV hit
Credit: Apple TV+
NEED TO KNOW
Candice Bergen guest stars on season 3 of the Apple TV hit, Shrinking
In an interview with PEOPLE, Bergen reveals how it all came together
New episodes of Shrinking drops Wednesdays
Candice Bergen is a TV legend. The five-time Emmy winner (for her role on Murphy Brown), starred in countless hit shows, like Boston Legal and Sex and the City. But there was one new series she really wanted to join, so she called up the creator and asked to be a part of it.
The 79-year-old makes a guest appearance on episode 7, season 3 of Shrinking as the caring (but sometimes critical) mother of Derek (Ted McGinley).
"I forced myself on them," Bergen tells PEOPLE about joining season 3 of the Apple TV hit. "I asked to be on it. I was such a fan of the show. It's so remarkable, it's just the truest, smartest, wittiest show, but it never pushes, and I just thought, I want to be on it."
She jokes, "So they were like, 'Well, okay, what do we do with her?'"
In her role she plays Constance, who comes to town to help her son Derek recover from heart surgery. She gets under the skin of Derek's wife, Liz (Christa Miller), who is annoyed by Constance's critiques of her parenting.
Credit: Apple TV+
Bergen was pleased with the character they created: "I was happy that they were able to squeeze me onto it and play Derek's mother."
While she goes head-to-head with Liz over their parenting styles, she does share a touching scene with Harrison Ford's character, Paul, who has Parkinson's disease. Paul has an ongoing phrase that he says throughout the show ("F— Parkinson's") and when he first meets Constance, they share a moment saying that phrase together.
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Off screen, Bergen's second husband, Marshall Rose, died in February 2025 from complications with Parkinson's disease. "It was great," Bergen says of getting to utter that line with Ford. "I love being able to do that."
While they hadn't worked together before, Bergen first met Ford decades ago.
Credit: Andrew Toth/FilmMagic
"I knew Harrison when he was a carpenter," Bergen says, revealing that he met him while at Joan Didion's home "100 years ago," Bergen jokes. "Harrison was there, sort of eating and hammering at the same time. He was like a master carpenter. He was having trouble getting work, if you can imagine such a thing."
On set, Bergen says Harrison showed her pictures of his planes and says, "Harrison's a guy, and he's just a national treasure."
When asked if she ever taps into her character Constance's tendencies to give parenting advice to her real-life daughter — head of editorial content at Vogue, Chloe Malle, who has two children — Bergen stays in her lane.
"I never give advice unless I'm asked," Bergen says. "I'm very circumspect. I'm not one who tells you how to live. I only live mine."
New episodes of Shrinking air Wednesdays on Apple TV.
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