Thanks to starring in Saturday Night Live and subsequent film and TV projects, audiences were well aware of Jason Sudeikis’ comedic talent, which served as the anchor of the first season of Apple TV+‘s Ted Lasso. What viewers weren’t expecting was to meet so many hilarious new performers that had flown under the radar, including Juno Temple and Brett Goldstein. Audiences aren’t the only ones who have a hard time keeping their composure while watching the series, as the stars themselves also often struggle to get through their scenes, due to how gut-busting their co-stars are, with the pair revealing which scene partners cause them to ruin the most takes. Season 2 of Ted Lasso premieres on Apple TV+ on July 23rd.
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“When Jason decides to go off on a riff, it’s hard, it’s very hard,” Temple revealed to ComicBook.com. “I will say, a lot of the time, for me, it will happen when it’s on his coverage so it won’t mean that I’m necessarily going to ruin the take, but it does mean you have to try to do one of those silent laughs that doesn’t become a snort or something else. But, sometimes, he’ll just go and you’re like, ‘Oh, no. Oh, no.’ And Nick Mohammed. Some of the moments I have gotten to shoot with that incredible actor, he is very difficult to keep a straight face with. Very difficult.”
Goldstein added, “I struggle with most of the cast but my real Achilles heel is Phil Dunster, who plays Jamie Tartt. I can’t get through a scene with him and, when it is a scene, a Roy and Jamie scene, they have to schedule like an extra four hours for all the f-cking wasted footage that’s just us laughing at each other. It’s a real problem.”
In addition to playing Roy Kent in the series, Goldstein is also a member of the writers’ room, with Season 2 allowing him new opportunities to write for the characters in ways which were more challenging with the debut season.
“I don’t want to single anyone out because, the truth is, particularly writing Season 2, this is not me just being nice, this is true, that when we wrote Season 1, it wasn’t cast yet, so once we made it and worked with all these great f-cking actors, writing Season 2 was more fun, because I never understood this phrase until we did this,” Goldstein detailed of his favorite characters to write for. “You’ve got your sandbox and you’ve got your action figures and now I know what the action figures can do, I know what Juno’s capable of, I know what Hannah’s [Waddingham] capable of, I know what Jeremy’s [Swift] capable of, so writing any of them is really exciting because you’re like, ‘I’m so excited to see this line come out of Juno’s mouth because I know she’ll f-cking nail it.’ So, actually, any combination of any of the characters is quite exciting to write. But, obviously, Roy is the answer.”
Temple would go on to express her love and gratitude at getting the opportunity to play Keeley in the series, as much of her acting opportunities prior to Ted Lasso were in dramatic and horrifying projects.
“I think that the trajectory of Keeley and her being this, I dunno, she’s just this ray of sunshine and to get to come back to her and come back to this family that was so important and one of the greatest experiences of my career so far in a time where everything was so dark was an extraordinary moment of gratitude, of excitement, of probably a little bit hyper,” Temple confessed. “I was very, ‘Ahhh!’ about it. I think Keeley keeps exceeding my expectations. I can’t believe I get to live and breathe and her and she’s actually a part of my universe and that is due to the writers and my incredible cast mates that I get to do these scenes with. And Jason Sudeikis, thank you so much.”
Goldstein pointed out how the casting of Temple ended up changing the overall approach to the character, due to how hilariously Temple brought her to life.
“Juno is the part we wrote the most for, because when we started, when we had Juno do the first read-through, we were like, ‘She’s funnier than the Keeley we’ve written,’ so we actually re-wrote a lot of Keeley to suit Juno more,” the writer admitted. “So she’s the one, I’d say, we wrote the most specifically for.”
The first two episodes of Ted Lasso Season 2 debut on Apple TV+ on July 23rd.
Are you looking forward to the series’ return? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars.
