Jessica Williams Makes It Her Own

When I connect with Jessica Williams over Zoom, she is emerging from a two-and-a-half-hour fitting for her Emmy dress. The fitting was virtual, with the designer working on the custom piece in New York, and the actor at home in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. “It was really cool. It was very exciting,” says Williams. “I woke up really nervous about it. And all of my fears were allayed, which is good.”

Williams has been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Gaby in Shrinking, the beloved Apple TV+ show in which she plays a therapist. Over three seasons, Gaby has been navigating friendship, healing, and grief, and sorting through the messiness of others’ lives while trying to figure out her own. Williams has been nominated every season for her role on the comedy-drama show, but this season feels a bit different, as Gaby has experienced a particularly emotional arc. “As an actor, I never really got a chance to rest last season, which was really exciting for me,” she says. “There was always something mentally I had to work on to prepare for Gaby’s journey.”

While Williams says she feels lucky to receive the nomination and that it all “feels a bit surreal,” she is cautious about the race becoming the whole point. “You can’t really hold it too close because it’ll really eat you alive. Focusing on the awards and trying to win means I can’t really enjoy the moment of actually being nominated if I focus too hard on it,” she says.

That ability to enjoy the moment feels hard-earned. Now thirty-seven, Williams has spent fifteen years in the industry building an expansive career that has moved from correspondent to hosting a podcast and comedy specials, and now to film and television. But the version of success she imagined when she started is not the version she wants now. “When I was young, I was hungry. I just wanted to do everything; I just wanted to be famous, I just wanted to be known,” she recalls. “Now it’s like, Oh no, I just want to be able to pay my mortgage and laugh at the Real Housewives of Atlanta with my friends. I just want to laugh all the time and feel artistically fulfilled. That’s my version of happiness.”

It is a noticeable evolution for someone whose career has been defined by ambition. After coming up in the comedy scene through the Upright Citizens Brigade, Williams became the youngest correspondent yet on The Daily Show at just twenty-two. That experience shaped her comedic voice and left her with a longstanding respect for the show’s host, Jon Stewart. “I had just come from having a really, really mean comedy boss who would absolutely destroy me and send me really mean emails and notes about my work,” recalls Williams of her arrival at the show. “I remember being so surprised that Jon was very nice, and he was brilliant at the same time, and wanted to know what I thought about things. And I really needed that as a performer. I don’t think at that age I could have taken another mean boss,” she says. “I don’t think I would have been here now. A lot of that job was me learning that I was safer than I thought I was in this comedy scene.”

Stewart also taught her something about comedy that has stayed with her: best joke wins. That philosophy has followed Williams into Shrinking, where she describes an identical ideology and equally collaborative environment. When she joined the show, creators Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, and Brett Goldstein knew relatively little about Williams’s character beyond knowing she needed to be a source of lightness and support for other characters while confronting her own grief. Gradually, Williams became the “shepherd” of the character. “There’s no Gaby without the writers because they work all year on the show and we get to be in production for about five or six months,” she says. “We all came up with her together.” Between working with Stewart and Shrinking’s collaborative environment, Williams says she learned a lot about taking ownership, and that if something doesn’t feel right, she can speak up. “There’s something so nice about being trusted that way,” she says.

That trust has helped make Gaby the kind of character audiences recognize as a friend: funny, warm, outspoken, stylish, and deeply invested in the people around her. Williams says viewers often tell her they want a best friend like Gaby or that the character reminds them of someone they grew up with. She thinks part of why the show resonates with viewers is its depiction of found family. “I think people are craving that right now, when everything feels like we’re all just kind of yelling at each other online. The world is so sad. There’s something about the inevitability of how sad it is, like living is pain, but then still having people around you that show up for you,” she says. “I think people respond to Gaby in that they wish they had a friend like that who would show up for them. I think that’s just kind of what they’re yearning for. Also, who doesn’t want a really cool, tall Black friend that dresses well?”

But Williams and Gaby are not identical. Williams describes herself as private, quiet, and shy, and enjoys “going off the grid,” spending time at home, and disappearing into her hobbies. Gaby is more extroverted, colorful, and outspoken. People sometimes assume the two are the same, which Williams finds flattering. “It’s so nice about playing a character that people really dig,” she says. “It’s really fun.”

Williams says she knew she wanted to act from a young age. Even when The Daily Show established her reputation as a correspondent, she says she was never trying to leave acting behind. “I just decided that I needed to focus on that and show people the kind of performer I want to be,” she says. “Especially as a Black actor, you really do have to show people every single time. You have to show up to your job every fucking time like, This is the kind of actor I want to be.” The romantic comedy The Incredible Jessica James, which premiered at Sundance, and HBO’s series Love Life helped her demonstrate her talent as well. “The thing that I’m most proud of is my range,” she says. “And being able to do that on Shrinking, it’s the perfect job for me.”

While valuing the connection that comes from her work, Williams understands the strange vulnerability of acting. “There is something deeply embarrassing about the core of this job,” she says, “which is, you know, feeling your emotions on screen and you want people to look at it.” She is also deeply appreciative that the job allows her to pay her mortgage and buy her dog’s prescription food. “I genuinely don’t know if it gets any better than that,” she says. “Doing your art, feeling your feelings freely, and then getting paid for it in this economy as a millennial, it doesn’t get any better.”

For all the glamour surrounding her Emmy nomination, Williams’s actual life seems grounded. She has a favorite grocery store, goes to the neighborhood movie theater Vidiots, where she sometimes hosts screenings, and is excited about some close friends who are moving to her neighborhood. On days off, Williams says, she likes to “do local shit.” She also sews. She recently finished the top of a quilt and is considering making a pair of baggy pants from a Sydney Graham pattern next. “I want to make sure I have a balanced life,” she says. “Not having my work be my life. It’s such a nice part of it, but it’s just not everything.” Still, she knows what she would like to do next: a mystery thriller in which she gets to play a detective. “I really think I could do everything, and I’m excited,” she says. “I have to prove time and time again that I can do everything. I’m just looking for the next move to show everybody what I can do.”

Shrinking is now streaming on Apple TV+.