The hugely popular TV series Ted Lasso is a case study of being nice and decent. As it reaches the final whistle, Tim Lewis meets its creator and star, Jason Sudeikis
Jason Sudeikis felt, weirdly, not that weird when he stepped into the Oval Office of the White House, back in March. Before he was the creator and star of Apple TV+’s feelgood global sensation Ted Lasso, he spent almost a decade writing and performing sketch comedy on the US show Saturday Night Live. One of his beats was impersonating politicians, and Sudeikis made recurring appearances as George W Bush and Joe Biden, when he was vice-president to Barack Obama, in a mocked-up version of the same room. So while his Ted Lasso colleagues were losing their minds – Brett Goldstein, the British actor who plays hard-nut ex-footballer Roy Kent, later admitted he was freaking out about what to do with his hands and spent the whole time trying not to swear – Sudeikis remained calm, somewhat.
“I’d been in a fake Oval Office a number of times,” says Sudeikis today, a few weeks on, “and so there’s a little bit of me that’s nonplussed by it and just holding my shit together. And I’d met the president when he was vice president and he’s a very warm guy. It’s like meeting your good friend’s father or your young friend’s grandfather. He just makes you feel at home and that home just happened to be the White House for that afternoon.”
