The show has become a monster hit, with Sudeikis becoming the latest actor to take home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Keep reading to find out what he told Parade about creating his most compelling character yet. Ted Lasso is a fish-out-of-water story. Why are they so appealing? I think because human beings are a lot more similar than sometimes we’re made to feel. And even when you’re in your own water, you can sometimes feel like you don’t belong there. It speaks to the learning we all have to do, even within our own home, office, family or team. Ted’s such an optimist. Was he based on somebody? I joke—he’s like the version of myself that I would want to be after two beers of day drinking on an empty stomach. It’s an enthusiasm and a zest for life and for others. It’s partly based on coaches, teachers, producers, directors and mentors that I have had, and I’m sure there are elements of my father. Ted started out as a character for an NBC promo. How did he go from there to getting his own series? Practice, just good, old-fashioned practice. The same way you get to Carnegie Hall. [jokes] It was a couple of things. I think it was having the opportunity to do a second commercial. When we did the first one, we thought it was a one-off, but then people really responded to it, both soccer fans and American football fans. And so then, when we did the second one, we knew it would only be done in the States. And, I think, having the background of doing recurring characters on Saturday Night Live and having my specific philosophy about those characters lent itself to being like, “OK, we know what he was the first time, how has he evolved?” When the second commercial also played well, me and my two pals that I did those with—Joe Kelly, who’s one of the creators of the show, and Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard—it just started rolling around in my head a lot. This was in 2015, and I was like, “Oh, Ted is a fun character to play.” And it’s set in the world of sports, if you will, that I think fondly of, especially as a metaphor for storytelling. It just kept bouncing around in my head and then in the three of our heads. They were living in L.A. while we were in Brooklyn at the time, so they came out for a week and we just talked about it, and then beat out the whole pilot episode, pretty much like 85 percent of it. And then, a story arc, and as we talked about it, it just kept lending itself to fun ideas. So that’s really what it is. There was more to do than the seven-minute commercial we made. Even with all of Ted’s optimism, he has an underlying sadness. So, even for somebody like him, not everything is 100 percent successful. No, no, it certainly isn’t. One of the things we try to explore in the show is that there’s bad in the world, there’s sad in the world. We don’t have much control over that. Even though I didn’t have any personal contact with him, I was a big fan of [coach] John Wooden’s writing and philosophies, having read a lot of the books he’s written and ideas that he’s written. There’s a John Wooden quote: “Only concern yourself with things over which you have control.” That’s something my high school basketball coach used to say. So it’s how we respond to those sad things. It’s our reaction to those things that we have control over, because the same way a genie can’t grant you the wish of forcing someone to fall in love with you, you can’t do it in real life either. Either it happens and it’s right, or it doesn’t. You’ve just got to know about acceptance and how you deal with it. Did you get involved in this initially because you’re a soccer fan in real life? Do you follow a favorite team? I didn’t as much then, no. That’s the secret of how the sausage is made. When NBC sports approached me to do a promo and they had like four or five ideas, this was the one I thought of immediately, just because playing Ted was a version of folks back home. [Sudeikis’ hometown is Overland Park, Kansas.] Again, maybe me after a couple of Jack Daniel’s with just the accent coming out. But then I knew exactly which two pals to ask if they would help, Brendan and Joe, and that’s because I knew nothing about soccer. Joe knows a good deal about soccer and a good deal about American football, and sports in general. And Brendan knows a great deal about soccer and football, and is very similar to his character Coach Beard, a walking internet about those things. He fell in love with the sport. We all spent time at a place called Boom Chicago, a sketch and improv theater in Amsterdam. Both Joe and Brendan spent two years and five years there, and I only spent like a year there, but in doing so—they both came in cynical as a lot of Americans are towards soccer. Like, “Why do they play for 90 minutes and the score is 1-1?” But then, the sport, which is affectionately known as the Beautiful Game, they started to be surrounded by people who did love the game. And then that infectious spirit of people’s enthusiasm for anything, even a sport you don’t care about, or you don’t know or understand, wins you over. And so, then I had the opportunity to be brought into that fold. Brendan was a huge Arsenal fan. This was in 2001. We ended up having a PlayStation in the green room. So before shows, Brendan and I would play FIFA, the video game soccer, and he would be Arsenal and I’d be Manchester United. And while we would play, he would explain to me the strategy of it. Brendan’s knowledge and enthusiasm for that game really bridged the gap for me. So I’ve grown to really love it and care for it over the past couple of years and even more so last year, because we had a wonderful opportunity on our weekends and days off to go see matches in person. And it’s undeniable, the energy. It’s not too dissimilar from great pro-team sports, or college campuses. It’s that same sort of infectiousness probably multiplied by two or three times. Do I support a specific team? It sounds political, but I truly don’t have one specific one. I really like Man City [Manchester City F.C.], and I really liked Liverpool, which is easy to do because it’s last year’s champion and this year’s champs. I really liked the coaches; I really liked the players. Those are the teams I gravitate towards on FIFA when we play. But my favorite team is probably A.F.C. Richmond, the Greyhounds, our team on Ted Lasso. Do you ever miss Saturday Night Live as an outlet for commenting on current events? I don’t miss it for that reason. The thing that I find myself missing about the show first and foremost are the people, and specifically, my generation, because they’re near and dear friends, and they would be people that I would choose to hang out with. There are so many avenues now, if I was inclined to comment on the world with social media and stuff, which I’m not active on at all, but, you know, should I have something to say, it’s there. A lot of what I have to say about what’s going on now, ironically, even though it was conceived well before everything going on in the world now, is in the Ted Lasso show truly. It’s a little bit maybe hidden, it’s not as direct of a hit as sitting at a “Weekend Update” desk and doing a feature, talking about things going on, whether as yourself or as a character, but it’s all in there. (Editor’s note: This interview was originally published August 7, 2020 to coincide with the Ted Lasso Season 1 premiere.) Next, You Need This Guide to New Streaming Sites, From Apple TV+ to Peacock
