LOS ANGELES — Jason Segel is sitting at a table outside Jones Coffee on Mission Street in South Pasadena, a short walk from his home — too short, in fact, if he's hoping to make much of a dent in the 15,000 steps he needs to do today as part of an exercise program he just started with his girlfriend. He comes here from time to time. A string quartet sets up and plays on Sunday, pretty dreamy even with the Metro trains clanging through every few minutes.
Segel uses the word "calm" to describe his days in South Pas, which is essentially a more L.A.-centric version of his life at his primary residence in Ojai, the laid-back Ventura County town where he moved shortly after finishing a nine-year stint starring in the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother." There, Segel lives in a little stone house in the middle of an orange grove, which he has absolutely nothing to do with, other than enjoying the fruit. It looks like the kind of place you'd see in a movie about a writer getting away from it all to write his memoir.
Segel first lived in Ojai when he was preparing to make "The End of the Tour," the poignant portrait of writer David Foster Wallace. He was terrified he was out of his depth, unsure how to prepare. He kept asking: "What would Edward Norton do?" And one of the answers was: "Move to the middle of nowhere so you can get out of your own head." Segel liked Ojai so much that he decided to stay.
