-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy Award-winning actor
and comedian who co-created and stars in the critically
acclaimed series "Ted Lasso."
New episodes of the third season
are available Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
Please welcome back to the show
our very good friend Jason Sudeikis.
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back. It is so nice to have you.
-Nice to be had. Thank you for having me.
-It's nice to have you back in New York City.
-Tell me about it, man. This place --
I don't know how it runs without me.
[ Laughter ]
It's like me and the subway.
[ Laughter ]
-You were saying backstage you were so happy 'cause
you've clocked that don't have to get dressed up to come on
this show anymore because I'm keeping it casual.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that -- It doesn't matter.
I wouldn't have gotten dressed up anyway.
But this just looks better. -You did say that
and then I remembered a bunch of times where I was in a suit
and you were dressed just like that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. [ Laughter ]
I don't want to stick out when I'm riding on the subway.
I want people to be like, "There's no way that's him."
-The subway's getting a bad rap right now.
-Why? What happened? -Well, it's not --
-Jimmy Johns, everybody's on Jimmy Johns now, right?
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, you're talking about the sandwich shop.
-The best New York sandwich...
[ Laughter ] -I see.
-...is at this little deli. -I see what happened.
You've never had a meatball sub until you've gone to Subway.
[ Laughter ]
They keep 'em little.
You know, a lot of like -- classic New York is
big old meatballs but the little, real little ones.
-They're so authentic, you can bring your passport into
a Subway and they will stamp it saying you've been to Italy.
[ Laughter ]
You've been to Italy if you take a bite of
this Subway meatball sandwich.
No, what's going on on the subway? How can I help?
-Well, anything you can do.
Right now, just even talking about it like this
so enthusiastically is gonna be good.
This is gonna increase ridership.
You know, it's just -- it's not as safe I think as it was
when you were kind of full time here.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not good.
-No, it's not good.
-It's back to being like the Michael Jackson "Bad" video.
-Yeah. -It's taken a downturn.
-It's like that. [ Laughter ]
-All that stuff. -But not as choreographed.
-Well, that's where you're gonna feel danger.
-It's Michael Jackson "Bad" video
without the dancing or the music.
[ Laughter ]
Which some would say are the two best parts of that video.
-Yes, some would argue that. -Some would argue that.
-Well, okay. I'm still going to ride it every now and then,
but I'll keep an eye on it. -By the way, I still find it
a very efficient way to get around.
-Yeah, absolutely. It is. It's great.
-I want to ask of your kids.
Obviously they've gotten to spend some time in England
thanks to the show. They're back and forth.
How are they -- Do they care about things like soccer?
Have they fallen in love with it?
-Oddly enough, Otis has fallen more
in love with it since being back here.
We got back in like November and we're out in L.A. right now.
But he was there almost -- you know, him and Daisy were out
there for almost all of 2022.
And they started to get little tiny accents but not enough.
They got as far as like -- I don't know --
Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins."
[ Laughter ] It's like that.
-So not enough for people to know they just spent a year
in England to be like, "What happened?
What's going on here?"
-"Oh, someone's laying in on their Disney+ a lot."
[ Laughter ]
Just only watch, "Hello."
It's like that. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, that's jarring.
-But yeah, he's really into soccer right now.
And he did this thing where he loves looking up their cards
and, like, videos, and he comes up with fun facts
that he finds on YouTube.
Like, if I bring up a player or something like that.
I don't have any off the top of my head.
But like Messi. He's great.
He loves Messi and Mbappe and all those guys
from watching the World Cup, and he's like, "Yeah, but,
you know, Messi, he hasn't always been perfect."
I was like -- [ Laughter ]
Then I look in his history, on like his YouTube, and it's like
12 facts you'd never believe about Lio Messi.
[ Laughter ]
I'm like I'm glad he's watching that
instead of TMZ or something. -That's true.
Poor Messi. A 9-year-old's walking around being like,
"Hey, don't put him on a pedestal."
-I know, I know. [ Laughter ]
It's like, "Son, glass houses.
Don't throw stones." There's a teachable moment here.
-This is very sweet to hear that your son and daughter do --
they do some music together.
-They love making up songs.
I come home from work.
And work right now is editing.
So I'm sitting in there with my friends, Mel and AJ,
and we're getting after it trying to make this TV show.
Then I come home, and as I'm coming up the stairs,
I can usually hear a keyboard.
I bought two karaoke setups for me and Forte.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-But they've now figured out how to turn them on.
-Uh-huh.
-And they'll just be making up songs.
And I truly believe that it was because I had the --
What is it called when you think of something?
-Like the wherewithal? -The wherewithal, yeah.
To watch the Billie Eilish documentary.
And so when you see Billie and her older brother Finneas
making music together and making each other laugh,
it was kind of similar to, like, when I went to go --
when I would go visit, like my Uncle George
on the "Cheers" set and be like, "This is a job?
You guys all joking around and, like,
you know, screwing around?" And it's like --
I think they took that and like, "Okay, we're gonna do this."
-Also, a very good sibling relationship for your kids.
-100%, yeah. -This is incredibly supportive
and laughter -- that's very, very well played.
-Unintentional. I was just curious because
Dais and I were gonna to go to the concert
and I wanted her to have a little more context because,
you know, you gotta understand why she's a bad guy.
[ Laughter ]
-You don't wanna go -- Otherwise you're missing it.
-Yeah. Oh, yeah, the beat's great,
the lyrics are interesting, but why is she a bad guy?
[ Laughter ]
-Obviously, you and I -- for my money, I always say I feel like
we were part of a really special cast in our time at "SNL."
-Top 20. -Top 20.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But I'm so impressed -- -I don't mind talking [bleep]
for our generation because I --
like, I felt like I had such a good seat there.
And I can name anybody and not name my name for like 10 names
and you're still like, "What? All at the same time?"
-Yeah. The fun thing now is we've been gone long enough,
people forget who exactly was all there at the same time.
-Yeah, yeah, it's remarkable. -It's a really good time.
It makes me very happy. But I'm also -- I don't know, man.
I feel like you did this really special thing here,
which is you put together this group of people.
And it is just so much fun to watch them all and --
[ Cheers and applause ]
-It really is. -You guys, as writers,
you've taken such good care of everybody.
And you've given them so many moves and it is so cool.
You know, I just started watching season three.
But you continue -- you know, it just feels like people
get introduced and you take care of them.
And it's really -- it just must be such a cool thing.
-It really is. And it is something that --
and I was was saying this to Eric in wardrobe who, you know,
we worked with at "SNL."
Like, it's the lessons you sort of learn there by either hook
or crook or sink or swim that you then, almost in
a "Karate Kid" type way, it's like,
"I'm just painting a fence." It's like, "No, no, no.
You can cast, you can write, you can edit."
And you learn these things from doing it, doing, it doing it.
But the biggest thing was learning to trust in people's,
you know, taste and for them to take care of themselves
and encourage them to take care of themselves.
So many of those things. I mean, Brett's such
a great example of that story
'cause he was a writer on the show.
Brett Goldstein. Then he was like,
"I think I understand this character.
Can I audition for it?" Makes a tape and crushes it.
And he had the gumption to do that
and then the talent to back it up.
And it's kinda like -- that's great.
So you want everyone in every department to do that.
So we try to do that on the writing side.
And here, I mean, as great as this group is, we're missing
Juno Temple and Nick Mohammed in there.
-It's nuts to look at. It's a very deep roster.
-It is. I look at that, I'm kind of like, this is --
this is like that the poster of "The Simpsons" when it
has every character from Springfield.
It's like no wonder the shows are so damn long.
It's like yeah, we're trying to, like --
we introduce all these folks.
We're trying to show how they became what they are
or just give a glimpse to it.
Then it turns the show into a bunch of inside jokes in a way.
-Well, it's a nice feeling because the nice thing you guys
have done is built a world where your audience is
on the inside with you guys. -Yeah.
-I got a bunch more questions.
We'll be right back with more from Jason Sudeikis.