the show ted lasso was nominated for 20 emmys last year more than any other new comedy in television
history it's a fish out of water story about an american football coach from kansas who moves to
london england to take charge of a professional soccer team despite knowing nothing of the sport
the tale of ted lasso may sound improbable but the series has become a phenomenon and changed
the game in hollywood so when production for the third season was about to begin we went to london
to meet as many members of the ensemble cast as we could including jason sedakis ted lasso's
mastermind in alter ego to find out how the shows scored the story will continue in a moment
knock a doodle doo ah good morning coach lasso did you set out and say i want a character
that's all about positivity and kindness and can transform people bring out the best in people
to play the character was intentional to play someone that was kind-hearted that didn't swear
be like teflon towards people's negativity or or sarcasm 100 intentional kindness
and positivity can be transformative yeah and so can the opposite but i mean if you had to choose
one at that point of writing it and wanting to play it i'd much rather try to view the world
you know as ted lasso that way is the lasso way jason siddiques told us the comedy in ted lasso
rolls onto the screen like a trojan horse how do y'all cowboys sometimes farcical good morning ted
often profane just gonna watch your ass
carrying with it home spun wisdom and warmth well that's a heaping spoonful of truth soup right
there the show defied not just the dark times of the pandemic but sometimes logic itself do you
believe in ghosts ted i do but more importantly i think they need to believe in themselves
as coach of the fictional soccer team known as afc richmond sedakis likes to say ted lasso
is the best version of himself one quality both character and actors share is curiosity
i saw this quote by walt whitman it was painted on the wall there said be curious not judgmental
i like that walt whitman never wrote or said be curious not judgmental yet it's become
more than just a catchphrase my mom's parish south side of chicago christ the king you know had like
a bible study class and what was the bible study about probably like be curious not judgmental the
gospel according to ted last or something like that maybe i think it might have been something
like that football's football no matter where you play it the show's success is even more
extraordinary when you consider its origins nearly 10 years ago long before ted lasso became gospel
he began as an arrogant incurious commercial hey how you doing this is ted lasson and i'd like to
talk to the queen please nbc sports needed a buzzy ad campaign to promote soccer's english premier
league in the u.s so they called sedacus who was finishing up a 10-year run on saturday night live
skip like little girls go not ignite a care in the world he said the job sounded like
fun especially when he was allowed to invite two old friends along for the ride so before
you guys created ted lasso you were actually best friends i don't know best friends i mean
a lot of people in our lives yeah i think we we got along we're fine
yeah yeah so how would you describe your relationship best i think best friends
ted lasso co-creators joe kelly and brendan hunt have known each other and jason sedakis
for more than 20 years i'm going to be ok after the commercials the trio developed ted lasso into
a more complete character who shed his arrogant swagger for humble curiosity in the show ted
lasso also deals with divorce you're not quitting ted and mental health challenges getting paid to
just jot down your little notes and diagnose my tears and then what all while bringing a feminine
approach to a typically masculine job you all got to get together and woman up think you mean man up
me no you all been manning up for a while now look where that's got you if anybody claims that they
thought this show or knew this show was going to work they're fitment a little bit no one was sure
the three friends got a boost when veteran television producer bill lawrence
joined the project what was in jason's pitch that convinced you he knew from the start
that this was a a guy that was putting out a optimistic face and that would be one note if
he wasn't also aware that that was covering up somebody that needed to learn about self-care
and being proactive in facing whatever demons they might have it got moving once bill was involved
but bill said this is not a soccer show right yeah yeah yeah he he basically pounded the table
and uh shouted at a very early uh writer's session that says not a soccer show this is a a workplace
ensemble comedy but that's kind of been a guiding principle you know it takes place in soccer world
but it's not it's never about the soccer at all yeah the thing that i was saying like in
the pitch means when bill and i went out was like this show's as much about soccer as like rocky is
about boxing what happened when you shopped around ted lasso here in hollywood what was the reaction
what's the opposite of a bidding war yeah yeah
streaming service apple tv plus decided to take on ted lasso which is produced by warner brothers
do you think you had more freedom because it was apple we went into filming feeling
like the underdogs that richmond were like we weren't coming on the heels of a bidding
war we weren't coming to heels of like here we go with this monster show and i felt like it
it helped yeah the process the tone the feeling the vibe everything
the vibe behind the scenes seems to mirror the team seen on the show
we invited brendan hunt who plays coach beard brentford taking on crystal palace
and tahib jamo and cola bikini who portray soccer players on ted lasso
to a proper saturday afternoon match so i was kind of surprised in talking to the writers that
one of the things that you guys deal with in the show are trying to dismantle is toxic masculinity
um i think um setting a show in in like a boy's locker room and a football locker room is um
it's not it's the perfect place to like try and tackle that i think that comes from like just like
a culture of like you know it's very competitive like it's like like boys being around other boys
and like everyone's pretending to be like this version of like what they think like a man is or
a young man is you get the inversions of people in it you know the person that you are behind
closed doors is not the person that you are in in real life yeah before he took on ted lasso
in real life jason sedakis hailed from kansas just like the coach he now plays there he was a
college theater star but just as comfortable playing point guard on the basketball team
he says richmond is partly based on his old team that also happened to be called the greyhounds
bill had one of these hanging in his office he pointed out
on the set demot named after martin damon an improv teacher from second city ted lasso's
writers named members of the team after friends family members and former mentors sasuke hamas
is one of the owners of boom chicago where brandon joe and i all worked in amsterdam one two three
it's hard sometimes for one word to capture so many things but for a lot of people this
is the iconic ted lasso believe i know believe in yourself believe in the people around you
yeah yeah absolutely believe in the process one of the show's breakout stars brett goldstein believed
he could play roy kent check on your teammate the gruff washed up tough guy with a heart of
gold i like being roy kent i don't know if i can handle just being some loser has been called roy
trouble was goldstein was hired to write not act last time i saw eyes that cold they were
going head-to-head with roy scheider while we were writing it about somewhere around episode five i
started to think i think roy kent is living inside me how did brett goldstein go from writer to star
just flat out showbiz gumption you know and he just felt a connection to the character and so he
he did uh taped himself uh sent it to bill saying hey if this is good you know great if it's not we
never need to talk about this again and they're like brett turned into a roy video oh did he
fire it up and immediately like brett's roy yeah
he's immediate you all played like a bunch of little pricks you hear me yes hush roy is very
gruff very angry and it's always jarring when you call bradley answers the phone hello
how are you how are you dear friends he's the sweetest most gentle man
he is a cauldron of emotion that he doesn't want anyone to know about
who has been raised in a culture of almost toxic masculinity to be a wall and he has
all these feelings and these emotions but he cannot express them all and he has to keep them
pen up which is why he talks like he talks cause he's holding it all in it's like a cork a coin if
he pulled it out he'd cry and sing and you know fly off you're nearly 70 and you're having a baby
i mean what are you a character from the bible hannah wattingham who spent much of
the last 20 years performing musical theater in london's west end plays team owner rebecca welton
why do you think the show resonated with so many people and does it have something to do
with the pandemic i think it does and it doesn't people associate it with the pandemic time
of course because it was a massive hug and it was a way of everyone blocking it out the
show was a massive hug yes a hug to what two people to humanity it's uh it's i think it's
what everybody needed at the time they needed a hug and a reminder to be kind to each other
a reminder to include each other a reminder to check in with each other even if you think
someone's got their stuff together they haven't i also think that had the pandemic not happened
it would have done exactly the same thing because there's something about our show
that reminds everyone that you don't have to be cutting to be funny you can be warm and funny and
kind and giving and supportive and accepting and funny and that's what makes ted lasso distinct yes
thank you at last year's emmys wadingham goldstein thank you very much thank you and sedakis all took
home trophies for acting i am eternally grateful and the show won outstanding comedy series
richmond was more of a cricket town than a football town the richmond greyhounds
may be a make-believe team but richmond the town is 100 real
this is the real version of the set yeah you kind of can't fake richmond really exactly um this bar
is great yeah we basically built an exact replica you know is not what i expected the day we were
there so were fans of the show including a young woman who had traveled from germany and had just
gotten a tattoo in honor of ted lasso still in a ziploc and it read be curious not judgmental
i mean this is pretty special being out here yes we also took a walk on the field where the
richmond greyhounds shoot most of their soccer scenes i mean it's kind of great your pitch is
right near the studio i know i know something else happy accident in typical midwestern fashion
jason sedakis was not entirely comfortable explaining the show's success nor taking
credit for it what do you think the uh legacy of ted lasso is decades from now
i don't know i hope folks keep watching it it's a decent chance it'll pay for my kids college
unless i unless i blow it all you don't think it's already done that you only have already blown it