‘Ted Lasso’ Star Brett Goldstein Hints at Surprises in Store for Season 2
Q&A
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ted Lasso, Season 1, Episode 10, “The Hope That Kills You.”]
Brett Goldstein is a busy guy. The actor and writer has been busy delivering laughs in the first season of Ted Lasso, and will continue to bring the entertainment with his new AMC anthology, Soulmates, on which he serves as co-creator and executive producer.
The British actor makes quite an impact in the first season of the Jason Sudeikis-led Apple TV+ comedy about an English football league team that finds itself being coached by the titular American, Ted Lasso. Goldstein stars as the easily angered veteran footballer Roy Kent, who goes through a rollercoaster of emotions in the [SPOILER ALERT] Season 1 finale, “The Hope That Kills You,” due to a potentially career-ending injury and relegation from his team, AFC Richmond, following their loss against Manchester City.
But despite its more emotional moments, Ted Lasso has been a bright spot of 2020 television, something Goldstein doesn’t take for granted. “Ted Lasso is an absolute dream. It is a dream job, dream role, dream team. And it’s difficult, because I think it’s what people say anyway, but it’s true. It’s such a good group of people,” he gushes.
(Credit: Courtesy of Casey Moore 2020)
Now, with the guarantee of a second season of Ted Lasso on the way, Goldstein is hanging up his cleats for a spell to introduce viewers to the twisty Black Mirror-esque tales of Soulmates. Below, the multi-hyphenate breaks down the finale of his lovable comedy and teases what to expect from his dramatically different new series.
Roy ended the season with some uncertainty over the future of his career. Do you know whether or not he’ll hit the field again in Season 2?
Brett Goldstein: We’ve already started to write Season 2. But I can’t tell you anything. I don’t want to spoil anything, because we have some nice surprises planned. You won’t see it for a while, so I wouldn’t like to spoil it.
As a writer on the show, how much control did you have over Roy’s story and personality?
It’s very much a team effort with Jason [Sudeikis] leading it. But I think once this show was cut, because we got to know the actors and what they sounded like, we knew what they were good at and what was funny about them. That changed what we’ve written, that’s where our rewrites would be. So I guess inherently, yes. There’s a lot of Roy in me, sure, but we’re still a team, everyone’s involved.
Roy’s an angry guy and he lets that aggression out in different ways, despite some softening from Ted and Keeley (Juno Temple). Was it fun exploring that side of him?
Yes, I really loved it. But also, I think Roy is not the sort of part I’ve played before, and it was certainly nice to express inner rage. [Laughs] It’s a treat you don’t get quite often in real life. The truth is, the hardest part about playing Roy is that he doesn’t smile. He almost never smiles. And it’s very funny filming, and Jason’s very funny, and he would often make me laugh. If Roy even smiles, the take’s ruined. So that was genuinely the only real challenge of playing Roy, trying not to smile when funny stuff will happen. Because a lot of funny stuff is happening.
(Credit: Apple TV+)
Was there any moment or scene you enjoyed filming the most?
I did love the ice scene with Jason [in Episode 9]. The day that we walked onto the real football pitch, and out as a team, that was pretty special, particularly because my dad always wanted me to become a footballer. Unfortunately, I went into comedy, which was very disappointing to him. Just to be able to send him a picture [and say] “look.” And finally he can be proud of me. [Laughs]
Speaking of football, was there a lot of training involved with the role?
Yeah, there was a lot of football training. We also played, because we were filming at the facility where the pitch was, so between scenes and takes, we’d just play football all the time. It was pretty dreamy, the whole thing.
What should people know about Soulmates, which premieres on AMC beginning October 5?
Well, it’s a show set in a world where science has found proof of the human soul. Because of that, there is now a test you can take, that 100 percent matches you with your soulmate. Each episode is a different story set within that world. And every episode asks a different question about love and relationships.
And the idea of this test is, if you’re in your late 20s and you’re single, it’s great, but if you’ve been married 15 years and you have kids, and suddenly this test comes into the world, it’s going to force you to ask an awful lot of questions about your life and who you’re with.
Soulmates (Credit: Jorge Alvarino/AMC)
I think why this series is interesting to us is everyone loves so differently. If you ask anyone in the world what they think true love is, to tell you a story of their great relationship, everyone will give you a really unique answer. That’s really what the show is doing, is looking at modern relationships in various different ways. And hopefully you are very surprised by what it is, because if you watch it in the order it’s presented, you will never expect [what’s coming next].
Considering the vastly different tones of Ted Lasso and Soulmates, do you have to change your approach as a writer?
Yeah, Soulmates is different because with Ted Lasso … we’re telling one story, but we’re telling it over five hours. Whereas with Soulmates, we’re telling a film, but we’ve got an hour to tell it. And we want it to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So it’s a bit harder maybe with Soulmates, because you have to pack so much into a very short space of time.
You have to make people care, you have to build a world. It’s like doing a pilot episode every time. And the pilot episode is always the hardest episode. So once we started, we were like, “God, we’ve made our life really hard with this.” It’s very cool, because it gets to be new every time, and exciting, but equally, it’s much harder because you’re constantly having to start again. So that’s the challenge of it.
Soulmates has such a fantastic cast. Were any of the episodes or roles written with the actors in mind or was casting done after the scripts were finished?
Do you know what? That’s an excellent question, and no one has asked us that. I think truthfully, we’d written the scripts before we were casting. So there were actors we loved and we always wanted to work with, and there were actors we had worked with before. You always have your kind of dream list. But now … usually you write this with people in mind, but we didn’t with Soulmates. And having said that, the cast is amazing … and we got the cast that we wanted, once we approached people. So it wasn’t random that we got that cast, but we had written it first.
(Credit: Apple TV+)
Soulmates has already been renewed for Season 2. Do you have a running list of scenarios just waiting to go for those episodes?
Yeah, we’ve got a big list of stories. Weirdly, I always think we’re done and yet, this morning, we were messaging each other saying, “Oh, I’ve had a new one.” And the way it works, is [co-creator] Will [Bridges] will pitch me an idea, or I’ll pitch him an idea. Whatever the idea that we both get excited about, we want to build on it, and that becomes an episode.
Ted Lasso, Season 1, Streaming now, Apple TV+
Soulmates, Series Premiere, Monday, October 5, 10/9c, AMC
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