JUST FOR KICKS
Sudeikis doesn't know why his soccer comedy is a hit — but he'll take it
Ted Lasso
Season 2 premières Friday, Apple TV+
Much like the character he plays on the Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis knew next to nothing about soccer when he was asked to play a hapless U.S. football coach-turned-english-soccer-manager in a series of ads for NBC Sports close to a decade ago.
“To answer your question, I knew jack squat. Much like Ted,” Sudeikis laughs in a video call from New York City. But there was something about Lasso's unbridled optimism, self-belief and humour that resonated with the Saturday Night Live vet. So much so that seven years after he had first played the character to plug the Premiere League in 2013, he was still thinking there was enough of a story to make a full-length series centring on the affable coach.
“Ted went through some highs and lows in that first commercial,” says Sudeikis, 45. “But the series became something we felt we could do after doing the second commercial. We had a mix of childlike enthusiasm and unwavering optimism that I always felt, as they say in show business, gave it legs.”
After he fumbled his way through leading the struggling AFC Richmond in last summer's infectious breakout hit, Lasso's 12-episode second season ramps up its secondary characters as it picks up with the team promoting Nate Shelley (Nick Mohammed) to assistant coach and hiring a sports psychologist (Sarah Niles) to deal with its slumping star player Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández). Elsewhere, Ted's boss Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) dips her toe back in the dating pool after being brutally dumped by her former husband, just as Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple) make new strides in their burgeoning relationship.
The team's former bad boy Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) even gets a deeper storyline as he deals with the fallout from his own antics on and off the field.
Meanwhile, Ted taps into his evil alter ego Led Tasso to help motivate his players and continues to deal with the dissolution of his marriage (something Sudeikis was forced to confront in his own life after his split from longtime partner Olivia Wilde last year).
“It's a classic season 2 move,” Sudeikis chuckles. “There's a few new faces. There's some similar issues and completely new issues that might seem rooted in the original issues.”
After the first season proved to be one of 2020s most-talked about shows, along the way earning a pair of Golden Globes, Sudeikis struggles to answer why so many people have fallen in love with Ted. The show nabbed 20 nominations at this year's upcoming Emmy Awards, including best comedy series and best actor in a comedy series.
“That's an easier question to ask than answer. I wish I knew. I'd like to think that some of the things we had creative control over, like making intentional choices with the way we told the story and hiring really great people in front of and behind the camera had something to do with it. I think it was the right amount of alchemy between those elements and old-fashioned good luck.”
Sudeikis co-created the character along with comedy pal Brendan Hunt, who plays Ted's know-it-all assistant, Coach Beard, and Joe Kelly. Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Cougar Town, Spin City) joined the trio in 2018 adding some extra magic fairy dust.
“I had the idea for a homespun character with some good ol' boy energy versus just yelling and shouting,” the father of two says. “We got together, and we came up with an idea for a whole first season.”
Additional episodes were quickly ordered, with Sudeikis saying he is eyeing a three-season arc for Ted and company.
“I remember thinking, `If we do this commercial, maybe they'll take us to a soccer game,'” says Bless This Mess alum Hunt. “That's where the bar was.”
Growing up in the U.S., soccer was never a big thing for either Sudeikis or the Emmy-nominated Hunt.
“It never took hold of either of us. But then I got a job in Amsterdam doing comedy out there,” Hunt says. “That's when I discovered I had been lied to about soccer. It was awesome. So I started to play catch-up. After a year-and-a-half of living there, I was the MVP of any pub quiz for any soccer category. So to be able to have a job that incorporates this late love of my life is pretty exciting.”
Now, much like his character, Coach Beard, his knowledge about the sport is so vast that Sudeikis will lean on his friend when he has a question about the game.
“I'm more inclined to text Brendan questions about soccer than Google them because he knows how to explain it to me,” Sudeikis grins.
“Google will still keep it complicated and reference soccer things. Brendan will break it down like a Bruce Willis movie or the '90s (Chicago) Bulls in a way that I can easily digest.”