Ted Lasso’s Jason Sudeikis explains why he changed the Richmond coach’s character
Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis has explained why he changed the titular character’s personality from the initial drafts of the script.
Co-creator Sudeikis has played the football coach for three seasons of the Apple TV+ show, but revealed to The Guardian that Ted wasn’t as happy-go-lucky when the character was conceived.
Sudeikis termed him “belligerent”, before explaining why he decided to make the changes.
“It was the culture we were living in. I’m not terribly active online and it even affected me,” he explained. “Then you have Donald Trump coming down the escalator. I was like, ‘OK, this is silly,’ and then what he unlocked in people… I hated how people weren’t listening to one another.
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“Things became very binary and I don’t think that’s the way the world works. And, as a new parent – we had our son Otis in 2014 – it was like, ‘Boy, I don’t want to add to this.’ Yeah, I just didn’t want to portray it,” he added.
Ted Lasso is currently nearing a conclusion of sorts, with the series set to take a break following the third season. Despite the hiatus, it might not be the final show from the narrative universe to air, with co-creator Brendan Hunt (who also plays Coach Beard) teasing the possibility of a spin-off.
“I definitely could [see it happening]. I don't know that it will [happen] but if it does, whichever character it is about, I hope it's animated and they're fighting crime,” he exclusively told Digital Spy.
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Ahead of the season’s final episodes, Nick Mohammed revealed he felt “quite lonely” filming his scenes following Nate Shelley’s move to rivals West Ham United, which occurred at the end of the second season.
“He's out in the desert at the moment, isn't he? Sadly, he has chosen to leave Richmond in the way that he did, and he is absolutely out on a limb, he's a fish out of water,” he said. “From a practical point of view, some of that stuff was quite lonely to film, because obviously I'm not [shooting] with the gang.”
Ted Lasso season 3 streams on Apple TV+, with new episodes every Wednesday.
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