PITCH PERFECT
Sudeikis plays bewildered coach in new soccer series
Ted Lasso
Apple TV+, streams Aug. 14
Former Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis has played some memorable comedic characters on television.
But instead of spinning off one of his favourite late-night bits to set the stage for his TV return, he chose Ted Lasso, a character NBC Sports created to help promote English Premier League soccer.
Fleshed out from NBC commercials, Lasso tells the story of a college football coach from Kansas an English soccer club hires to lead their team back to glory on the pitch, despite having no knowledge of the game.
Q Ted Lasso has been around for awhile. Tell us about the decision to explore his own show beyond the ads he appeared in for NBC.
A We did the first commercial in 2013 and another in 2014, and in doing the second one we unlocked an element of the character that was present, but not really leaned into, and that was his optimism and his enthusiasm.
A year after that last one, me and my buddies Brendan Hunt (who plays Ted’s right-hand man Coach Beard) and Joe Kelly, who I did the commercials with, met up for a week in New York and we just tried to see if we could flesh out more ideas to see if this character could go for 30 minutes. It happened very quick. We wrote 80, 85 per cent of the pilot way back then. We knocked out six to 10 episodes and then it was like, “Oh, this can be a thing.” But then life, personally and professionally, happened for all three of us.
Then in 2018 sometime, Bill Lawrence was delivered to us by the universe and we couldn’t have been luckier there.
Cut to two years later and here we are talking to you. It was one little step at a time.
Q You’ve played some standout characters on SNL. Ted only appeared on a handful of NBC ads and yet he too stands out. Where did he come from?
A He’s based on a bunch of different people in my life.
Coaches I’ve had and mentors I’ve had. But I jokingly say that he’s the best version of myself. Like if I was 85 per cent optimism versus what I am now.
On day-to-day level, or after a few beers, I skew optimistic, but I’m nowhere near the level Ted is. Yet it’s the kind of mentoring coach, director, producer, teacher that I always wanted to have — and did have in many different capacities. That’s what he’s based on. A hopefulness for my younger self. Who I could have shaped to be at any given point had I had someone like this in my life. I had a variance of it, but nothing as specific as this.
Q The show has a lot of laughs, but it’s got a lot of heart. Can you talk about wanting to create a series that’s more than just a joke every 30 seconds?
A I love shows that are just jokes after jokes — whether it’s live action or animation. But the styles of shows and movies that I’ve really loved, and been influenced by, are the work of Ron
Shelton (Bull Durham) or Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) or Aaron Sorkin (West Wing). Their work seems to have a texture … they have comedy, drama and romance.
We were really lucky to get Bill Lawrence to come on board with us because I think Scrubs did that in a really great way. You could take the 10 best episodes of Scrubs and put those up against anything else on the history of television and I think it would fare well because it had all those elements. Great dynamics between men and women, a loving platonic relationship between the two lead guys, and then dealing with life and death, as they do in a hospital, and honouring all of that in a very thoughtful, intelligent, funny way. That’s what we were swinging for with this show.
At the end of the day, it’s an ensemble show. It might be called Ted Lasso, but to me this is a show about everything else that’s going on there. The American version of the British Office (was a success) because those shows were well-cast and well-written and well-drawn and we got to spend time with them and care about them over multiple episodes and story arcs. mdaniell@postmedia.com