Tim Allen is getting candid about his struggles, despite being on a personal and professional high.
Allen, 71, took to X on Wednesday, February 26, to share, “So many blessings in my life yet woke up with profound sense of sadness, no explanation just sat and felt sadness.”
The actor encouraged his followers not to shy away from their feelings. “To experience sad is necessary to experience [the] happiness one imagines,” he added.
Allen is currently thriving amid his return to the sitcom space with ABC’s Shifting Gears. Before leading the new cast, Allen starred on Home Improvement from 1991 to 1999 alongside Patricia Richardson, Taran Noah Smith, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Zachery Ty Bryan, Richard Karn and Debbe Dunning.
‘Last Man Standing’ Cast: Where Are They Now?
Allen continued to find success as America’s favorite sitcom dad with his role as Mike Baxter in Last Man Standing, which ran from 2011 to 2021. But despite the highlights that came with his time on screen, Allen recalled being apprehensive about joining Shifting Gears as Matt Parker.
“It was a complicated decision. I was doing Disney+’s Santa Claus series at the time and I said, ‘I really can’t think about this now,’” he exclusively told Us Weekly last month. “Do I want to do linear TV? I was so depressed at how streaming has hurt television. So if I did it, I want to elevate it.”
Allen reflected on his past experience on the small screen, saying, “I’ve done Mike Baxter [on Last Man Standing] and Tim Taylor [on Home Improvement]. So if I do this again, I pitched three things: I want a guy that lost his wife recently, so he’s dealing with grief; I want a guy with the family that doesn’t get along; And then he has a custom car shop.”
The best part of his new show has been Allen’s ability to play a character that was “not like the other guys.”
“He’s more like me. I’m more of an artist. I was a design student and a philosopher and my standup comedy is really about messing with people in a good way,” he noted to Us. “I came from a huge family run by women. So my perspective is very different about men. I don’t think we run things. So I want this to be that guy. He’s not a man’s man in that term, and he wasn’t trying to be anything but what he does.”
‘Home Improvement’ Cast: Where Are They Now?
Allen also received praise from his costar Kat Dennings, who plays his onscreen daughter. “It clicked pretty fast. We had lunch after I accepted the role and I felt immediately like I could trust him for some reason,” she shared with Us in January. “And he opened up really fast to me. So I [was] like, ‘OK, this guy is like letting me in.’”
Dennings, 38, noted that her and Allen’s “instant” connection has only gotten stronger.
“For some reason it worked pretty immediately — maybe because I’ve grown up watching him for so much of my life, but it just worked. It felt very organic,” she told Us. “And as [filming has] progressed, our scenes are so funny, if I do say so myself. The arguments are my favorite scenes to play because I have no fear. There’s no fear for either of us. We just absolutely go for it and it’s so much fun.”
