When Claudia Sulewski found out that she was cast on the second season of “Shrinking,” the Apple TV+ series from Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, and Brett Goldstein, she was ecstatic to be joining one of her favorite comedies. There was just one hitch: She would be playing a pregnant woman—something Sulewski has no direct real-life experience with.
Much like her character, Ava—who is being courted by Brian (Michael Urie) and his husband Charlie (Devin Kawaoka) in hopes of adopting her baby—Sulewski had to lean into something new.
“I allowed that to parallel my experience,” Sulewski says. “This young woman is pregnant for the first time…. This is new and this is something she’s never gone through. I [used] my nerves being on set to help play into the nerves I imagine this character is feeling in this moment of time. And that helped bring in this sincere and genuine element of fear and uncertainty.”
Mastering the physical performance
After finding a connection to Ava’s emotional state, Sulewski was then tasked with learning the physicality of the role, which involved wearing a prosthetic stomach. “The pregnant belly is filled with beads,” she says. “Having to navigate walking around a table, it helps that the belly certainly had some weight to it.”
For Sulewski, having a fake belly literally strapped to her allowed her to tap deeper into her character. It also created a barrier between her and Ava; as Sulewski explains, it was easy to look in the mirror, see the fake belly, and understand she was in full character mode.
“It only helps add to the experience and supports my physical choices and how I chose to move with my body and walk,” she says. The actor was, however, certainly thrilled to take it off at the end of the day. “I got so used to having it strapped on that [when] I peeled it off, I discovered a layer of sweat…in between the silicone and [my] stomach,” she recalls with a laugh.
For performers who may be faced with learning how to play pregnant onscreen, Sulewski recommends crowdsourcing tips from friends and family members. “Calling anyone in your life who has been pregnant, and watching how other actresses move with their bodies and pregnant bellies, [is helpful],” she says. “Reach out to those who have experienced pregnancy and ask them: Where did you feel most of that weight? Was it in your lower back? Was it on your shoulders? Was it in your feet? Because I imagine carrying a baby, it changes your balance, and you know where the weight sits on your body.”
The audition process
It’s that kind of natural curiosity that has helped Sulewski build a career where she shines on and off the screen. After getting her start as a digital creator and YouTuber in 2007, the Chicago native has dabbled in podcasting, launched a skincare brand called Cyklar, appeared in music videos (including from her boyfriend, the musician Finneas, for whom she also directed a video), and co-starred in the 2022 indie film “I Love My Dad.” But her two-episode guest starring role on “Shrinking” might be her biggest one yet—and her most surprising one, considering that she booked the part only two days after auditioning.
“I taped two scenes…and found out two days later,” she recalls. “What I’m learning with television is that everything [moves] very quickly.” Self-taping, now de rigueur in the auditioning world, is its own beast, says Sulewski, who offers this advice to fellow actors: “It’s more interesting to show what you can add to this character versus trying to create a perfect self-tape.”
She continues, “Because you’re not getting any immediate feedback like you would in the room, there is this pressure to put on a perfect tape and try to guess what the casting director wants to see, when the magic is in flipping it back to yourself and asking yourself: What can I do different here? How can I show a piece of myself in this two-minute scene?”
With that kind of advice, Sulewski hopes she can help other actors looking to score a role on their favorite TV show—just like she did with “Shrinking.”
“How cool it is to watch yourself drop into one of your favorite television shows?” she says. “To experience the season as a fan first and have this exciting surprise pop-in towards the end... It was so sweet for it to come full-circle.”
