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Jason Sudeikis: "It's hard to see why people have connected with 'Ted Lasso.' It is something pure "

2021-07-21T02:26:19.024Z


Apple TV + comedy, nominated for 20 Emmy Awards, premieres its second season this Friday A word written on a poster board above the AFC Richmond locker room door sums up his coach's philosophy: " Believe ." Believe. Believe, above all, in yourself. Ted Lasso, who lands on a British Premier League team hailing from college football as part of the club president's devious plan to hit her ex-husband where it hurts most, may not be the strategist players and fans have hoped for. You don't


A word written on a poster board above the AFC Richmond locker room door sums up his coach's philosophy: "

Believe

." Believe. Believe, above all, in yourself. Ted Lasso, who lands on a British Premier League team hailing from college football as part of the club president's devious plan to hit her ex-husband where it hurts most, may not be the strategist players and fans have hoped for. You don't even know the rules well. But his enormous optimism, his kindness and his homemade cookies manage to make a niche for him in the team and spread his self-confidence to those around him.

The first season of the comedy

Ted Lasso

premiered in the first summer of the pandemic and helped shed some light on a year full of darkness. It became a phenomenon that spread by word of mouth, fueled by critical acclaim. The 20 nominations he has received for the Emmy Awards attest to his success. Its protagonist, Jason Sudeikis (Fairfax, United States, 45 years old), has already collected awards such as the Golden Globe for playing good Ted, a character who was actually born in 2013 to announce that NBC had the rights to the Premier. Eight years later, the premiere this Friday of its second season on Apple TV + is marked in red on the serial calendar.

“When we made the first announcement in 2013, we thought it would be a one-time thing. We just wanted it to be fun and we wanted to get a free flight to go see a Premier League game. Those were our goals. We succeeded, we saw Arsenal against Tottenham, and then we made a new announcement ”, Sudeikis recalled in an interview with EL PAÍS by video call in June. “Then we unlock the enthusiasm and that eternal optimism of the character. The premise of the first ad was that he had been hired to be the coach and three days later he was fired because he had no idea. The second said that he had loved the time he spent in London and how he had fallen in love with football and wanted to bring it to the United States. That made me think that there was more to this character than fish out of water jokes ”,continues to review the germ of the series.

I'd like to think that the things we talked about mattered in 2015 and that they will do so in five years.

We don't invent forgiveness or empathy

Jason sudeikis

Together with his friends Brendan Hunt (who plays coach Beard in fiction) and Joe Kelly, they outlined a story that went further.

“We didn't know if it would be another advertisement, a movie… And then it was very clear that the thing had legs, it had a heart, a soul and legs.

It was 2015. And six years later, here we are.

It wasn't something overnight.

But I think every element of this trip has made it better. "

And in the middle, a pandemic in which viewers were eager for some light in so much darkness, even if that light came in the form of television fiction.

"The whole philosophy of the series, its

ethos

, emerged in 2015 and a lot has changed since then.

I would like to think that the things we talk about mattered then and that they will do so in five years, because we are not the ones who invented forgiveness, empathy or cooperation.

If you offered people a little light, a little hope that they needed, it's flattering.

But if I had to choose between the success of our series and that people could have continued to hug each other, I would not have doubted it, ”says Sudeikis.

'Ted Lasso' and the good things that still happen in 2020

The new chapters find the team trying to overcome a losing streak of results after being relegated.

The camaraderie shines through in the dressing room, but it's not enough.

A sports psychologist, immune to Ted's charms, joins in to help the players.

“We wanted this season to be about the characters, that they had to deal with problems on their own.

Sometimes the best way to help others is to help yourself, take time for yourself, force yourself to look inside yourself and fight with some demons, or at least know that you have them ”, explains the actor about the new season .

Seasoned in comedy, Sudeikis was a cast member of

Saturday Night Live

from 2006 to 2013. In the cinema he has starred in box office such as

We are the Millers

and

How to kill your boss

.

He describes his current character as an amalgam of references.

With his striking mustache, his peculiar way of speaking and his barrage of references to pop culture - sometimes somewhat outdated - the interpreter mentions his own father among his inspiration for the character (“the chatter and the mustache are clearly from him; although my father already shaved, he had a mustache like so many American men in the eighties ") and his high school basketball coach, Donnie Campbell (" I could quote from the legendary college basketball coach John Wooden to vintage house lines ”).

Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Nick Mohammed, in the second season of 'Ted Lasso'.

But what really catches the attention of

Ted Lasso,

what turns the series and the character into something against the current, is his absence of cynicism on a television in which, until recently, the applause was reserved for antiheroes, beings who they made the worst possible decision at every turn. "We didn't want to navigate cynicism and sarcasm and use it as currency to turn it into laughter," reflects Sudeikis. “There is a Mark Twain quote that says that each person's life is a comedy, a tragedy, and a drama. In a matter of a minute you can receive three messages and one is something funny, another sad and another may be that your house is on fire or that your dog has died. And then have your friend send you a

meme.

And everything happens at the same time on your phone. It is difficult to know why people have connected with the series. It has been something pure to which people have responded. I think it's the closest thing to a songwriter who writes a song in his journal and, x years later, he's in front of a microphone at Madison Square Garden and the whole audience sings that song with him. The fact that people have found elements of themselves in any of these characters and in these stories is what we work for. We leave space for people to feel seen and heard ”.

Although he is not a football fanatic, Sudeikis has shown enough interest in the sport to follow what happened during the European Championship.

In the presentation of the second season of the series, he wore a sweatshirt that supported the British players who suffered racist attacks after the defeat of his team in the final.

“I just know a little more about soccer than Ted.

But in these years I have been hooked.

I love its culture and the philosophy behind it.

During the pandemic in an online game

We created the AFC Richmond team to play games.

It was like our poker night, a way to stay connected. "

Perhaps Dani Rojas, one of the players on this fictional team, is not so misguided when he shouts that "football is life."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-07-21

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