What Happens When You Bet on Yourself | Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt

So you're looking at real opportunity, go and do this thing in Amsterdam that's real work, versus stay here for your imagination, and people choose imagination.

Yeah.

I'm confused by that.

To offer that view some grace a little bit, because what is imagination but a plan, you know, a plan and a vision? I think inarguably did not have enough of a plan. I can see the value of having a plan, but I guess it's like, don't be so locked into your plan that You don't recognize an opportunity.

It's kind of like strong opinions loosely held, right?

Yeah.

Like, have a plan, but be open to going off the plan.

That's the way.

Yeah. When we're young, we make a decision about what we want to be when we grow up, and we make a plan to make that happen. The things we study, the opportunities we pursue, all go according to that plan. But what happens if the plan is the obstacle to achieving our dreams? Worse, what if we can't see that the plan is the obstacle? Sometimes taking the risk to go wildly off the plan is the best thing we could do for ourselves, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to Brendan Hunt. Most of us know Brendan as Coach Beard from the show Ted Lasso, which is back for its 4th season on Apple TV. Brendan also has a solo show called The Movement You Need, which may hit Broadway in 2027. But none of that would have happened if Brendan had stuck to his original plan. Brendan is living proof that trusting our gut over the plan may be the single best thing we can do for ourselves and our careers. Brendan took the crazy risk to leave America to take a job in Amsterdam, of all places, a decision that nobody thought was a smart career move. And yet it was there that he gained a love for soccer, and met Jason Sudeikis. It was his choice to go off the plan that led Brendan to becoming one of the Emmy Award-winning writers, producers, and co-creators of Ted Lasso. The lesson is profound. Sometimes doing things we want to do, the things that others think are unwise, will be the best decisions we make for our lives. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is A Bit of Optimism.

This is A Bit of Optimism.

This episode is proudly brought to you by SAP. Is curiosity natural or can it be taught? It turns out anyone can learn to be curious, and it's the curious ones that get more out of life, advance quicker in their careers, and just generally grow as human beings. The more we learn to be curious, it's surprising how many doors open for us. Brendan, it's so good to have you here.

It's great to be here, Sam. Thank you.

I don't think people recognize or know how wonderfully insane and mad and creative you are. I know some of it, because I came to see your show in Amsterdam, your one-man show in Amsterdam, which is basically your life story.

Yeah.

Which is pretty nuts.

Till that time, at least, yeah. You saw it sometime, my solo show, 5 Years in Amsterdam, which I wrote starting in 2004 after having Lived 5 years in Amsterdam, and you saw it in '22, '23?

Something like that.

And I believe that was my official, like, Viking funeral last performance I was doing of that show. The theater I used to work for out there, Boom Chicago, they had requested it. So yeah, it's my life story up until leaving Amsterdam. Now I'm going to talk about a show none of you have seen, but that's what we're going to do. Um, I like the show very much, but it's also like clearly the show of a, of a younger man. But it was fun to do, and it was fun to give it a good send-off, and I was glad you saw it.

So let's back up a little bit, which is, you know, one of the things I'm fascinated about people with careers is how many people are living their childhood dreams, and how many of us just sort of like the sort of the twists and turns of where we find ourselves, and how people learn what to say yes to and what to say no to. I think your career is a twisty-turny one. So where did you grow up?

Chicago.

So, and how does a kid who grew up in Chicago end up for how many years in Amsterdam?

My main chunk was 5, but then I piecemealed 2 more because I kept going back.

You kept going back. So, and you speak Dutch?

A little, enough to impress people who don't and frustrate people who do.

So I'm impressed that you speak Dutch. Dank u wel is like all I know. Well, I'll start as, what did you want to be when you grew up? And then what— how did you get— how did you— why did you go offshore?

I basically knew I was going to be at least an actor from doing the 7th grade school play, which was The King and I. I played Louis, son of I. And then it was like nothing really was ever considered. Like that was just going to be it. Um, a huge night of impact for me though, was seeing Second City for the first time in 8th grade and just being blown away by what was going on there. That cast included Bonnie Hunt, who— was phenomenal that night in particular. And I think that probably introduced the notion to me of like, oh, you can write stuff too. Then, you know, go to Illinois State for college. They have a great theater program. Most of the original founders of Steppenwolf all met at Illinois State. The teachers they had were some of the teachers that I still had, you know, this—

And were you setting yourself up for stage or screen or didn't— or you're just actor?

Just actor, really. But probably with nowhere near enough attention to screen because by then I'd been exposed to a fair amount of theater in Chicago, you know, a steady diet of improv and Second City in particular. But Illinois State, they hewed so tightly to the sort of Steppenwolf ethos that like there wasn't a camera class. If there was, it wasn't required. Like all we were working with was like You know, kitchen sink, nuts and bolts, passionate at all times, you know, sort of gritty stage acting.

Real stage work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That helped my improv, I'd say, and my improv helped my stage acting. And I do sort of feel like I am of the stage more than anything else if I had to, had to describe me. But certainly, like, I like movies and TV too. I just, I just, for some reason it wasn't even something I, I thought about as much. And even when Steppenwolf people, who were the ones I admired, you know, the most, would show up on TV, I tended not to think of that as part of them in a way, even though they would— they'd be great, you know, like Laurie Metcalf in Roseanne, you know, my mom particularly loved Roseanne. We watched it all the time. Laurie Metcalf's great in that show. John Malkovich, I think the first movie of his I saw was In the Line of Fire, which I don't think he would even call his best performance, but he's— he won an Oscar for it, I believe.

Did he?

Yeah, yeah.

That was a great film.

It's fun. It's fun. Yeah, not really thinking about camera acting at all. And then in Chicago after college, I'm basically always performing every weekend, but sometimes it's with an improv company or sometimes it's with, you know, my theater company that I had. You would hear once in a while in improv circles about this place called Boom Chicago. And Boom Chicago, all I knew about it was it was in Amsterdam and it was founded by some Chicago people. And so they were doing like Chicago improv as we knew it out there.

The Second City style, that kind of—

Yeah, best I knew.

Ouvre. I use the word ouvre.

Uh, it's really, really, like, you know, the fact that you called attention to it kind of ruined it.

I mean, I didn't want people to think I was a snob.

Um, I'm gonna throw a French word in later and it's gonna— we'll be even stevens. But, uh, you know, I knew one dude who'd gone there and come back and like, he, you know, I didn't know him that well to like get into it with him, but he's like, he spoke positively of it. I knew another guy who had gone there and never came back and like, okay, interesting. But one time when they came around to do auditions. You'd hear when they were in town, you know, they'd come like once a year. And they came to see me at Comedy Sports where I was performing. Well, they saw a bunch of people, but including me, and they asked me to audition. And, you know, my knee-jerk reaction was like, no fucking way am I going to Amsterdam for a year.

That's ridiculous. Yeah, for my comedy career, my improv career.

Exactly. But this is like, despite the fact that I'd never left the US, and also like nothing's really happening to me career-wise.

You're doing your small shows on the weekends.

Doing my small shows. I had by then understudied a show at Steppenwolf.

Did you have a survival job, or was— were you able to make money as an actor?

No, I was temping, and oh yeah, nowhere near making money as an actor. You're getting like $20 a show.

Oh, okay.

You're blowing that on the, on the beer with the gang after the show. Yeah, but the context of this time when they came around was like, I'm in the middle of getting divorced. Like, I got married straight out of college, which, as some have told me since then, is a little young. And I was very soon getting divorced out of college, and I also just had my own like emotional, you know, childhood baggage that I'd never worked through at all in any way. I was just like, just, you know, running straight ahead, you know, shows, shows, shows, shows, shows. And so when I went to the audition, which I went to out of a sense of obligation, I'd heard that like every actor should go to every audition they can, which is now, I think, not, not really that great of advice, but I went.

Play the numbers.

And looking around, it was, there was some people in the room who was like, oh, I've seen that person improvised before. They're really fun. Oh, they're, they're really funny. Oh, okay. All right. Well, this, this is a, a good cohort. And then, you know, before they had us play any games, um, the artistic director, Josie O'Reilly, Australian, um, goddess of improv and comedy in my book, she— Her spiel about Amsterdam, like, just by the time she was done talking, like, I want this more than anything I've ever wanted in my entire life and got it. And then when I went, I was only going to go for a year and yeah, As has been spoiled, ended up staying for 5.

What was her pitch that made you want it so badly?

Like, fragments of it. One, for one thing, the realization that I would be performing constantly and that it would be the job, you know.

That they'll pay you enough to live.

Yeah, it was like, oh, that's appealing. And then, you know, the way she was describing Amsterdam, and like, by then Pulp Fiction had come out. Like, all I knew about Amsterdam by then, it's like Pulp Fiction, Anne Frank, John Lennon, and Yoko having their honeymoon there, and for all I knew, those happened simultaneously. But hearing her talk about Amsterdam made me— like, the reality of like, oh, this is an opportunity to like get the hell out of here, actually, and to do it in a place that sounds more amazing than you've given it credit for.

Was this a little bit like the cruise ship pitch, which is like, sure, it's a cruise ship, but you'll get to perform every day? Like, did it matter where it was, or was the Was the pitch partially, oh my God, I'm an actor, I'm an improv guy, I get to do the thing I want, make a living doing the thing I want? Was that the primary driver?

It was Amsterdam as much as the job, I would say. If it had been a cruise ship, it would not have drawn interest from me at all. I was tempted by cruise ships often later in life, but never quite took the plunge. And, uh, good night everybody. Um, and comedy, comedy, I mean, the improv quality here. I can't turn it off, Simon. But, uh, And I've known a lot of like super funny people who did cruise ships and had a great old time. But at that time it wouldn't have interested me because being on a cruise ship doesn't sound, doesn't sound like real life.

Right.

I mean, it is, but, but it doesn't sound like it. But, but living in another country sounded like real life. What could that life be, be like? It was an unexpected opportunity that came my way. It had never been in my thoughts. It, you know, the amount of time between them asking me to audition and then me being cast was Maybe 5 days. They insisted I leave the country within a month. Like, they desperately needed us to get out there. And I had to, like, unentangle myself from some things, particularly my theater company, who I, you know, felt terribly guilty about. I was pulling the rug out from under them a little bit. But I was also going insane. Like, that's the third element of this, is like, on a personal, mental, emotional level, I couldn't resist the pull of an escape.

I didn't realize this until I got to the theater to Boom Chicago, just how many people who are now famous in America have gone through that space. Can you just rattle off?

Yeah, it's quite a batting average. Seth Meyers and Josh Meyers and Ike Barinholtz and Jordan Peele and Amber Ruffin. Jason Sudeikis was there for a minute. Golly, there's, there's definitely more. And then there's some people who are like maybe not that famous yet, but like are much respected in improv circles and comedy circles, people who know Allison Silverman, Hedda Campbell, Pete Gross. Oh, Colton Dunn. A lot of people know Colton Dunn.

The reason I wanted to say that is I wanted people to recognize that for whatever they're building, whatever they built in Amsterdam, it's like a real thing. And just like most of us know Second City and being in the theater for Saturday Night Live and stuff like that back in the day, that this was a— this is a real feeder for the US entertainment industry.

But it was not then. It was not at all. When I started in '99, very Pep Rosenfeld was one of the founders. He was writing for SNL, and that was a big deal. Then he came back because he, you know, was having a better time at Boom. But then in 2001, Seth got SNL, and then it was like, huh? Because if you're taking the Boom job, especially back then, you're not— you're not thinking SNL is the—

Yeah, you're thinking, I'm having fun, I'm honing my craft, I'm getting paid to do the thing that I love, I'm having a cool adventure in Amsterdam, then I'll come back and focus on my career.

Exactly. Yeah, and so to the fact that all these people took this objectively unwise career choice and it's ended up paying off for them all is pretty fantastic, you know, because it is the thing where you get your chops up. We would have these guest directors and a couple times they were guys from Second City who I had seen like in high school years, you know, who I revered. One of them was a guy named Ron West. The Doctor, Ron West. And he One time, remember, we were walking, I think on Queen's Day actually, and I think I asked him like, is Boom good for us? Like, is it— are we dumb for being here? And I think I was in year 3 by that point, 2 or 3. And he said something I've never forgotten, which is, it's like being the Beatles in Hamburg. And he just meant it in the sense of like, you're not doing bad shows anymore. Like, you've come here, you've— you're doing all the shows, you're gonna leave here and you're not gonna do bad shows anymore, which is not— 100% true, but it's pretty true.

So what he means is you're honing your craft.

Yeah, like I've, I've like thought about this a lot and now I refer to it in my other solo show, The Movement You Need, coming to Broadway in 2027, maybe. You get your 10,000 hours.

Yeah.

You're performing constantly. You are performing for people who, for the most part, have English as a second language.

Yeah.

So you cannot rely on any bag of reference tricks or whatever. You can only exist in like what is in the room at this moment, basically, which is a great little challenge.

Yeah.

But also those people who have English as a second language are probably drunk. So you have to work all the harder to get through to them, which becomes about like, like some basic stuff like articulation.

Yeah.

You know, but also, um, you know, presence and, and, and, and passion and drive. And, you know, it ends up making your characters a little, a little broad. Um, but still you're just trying to make that show happen. But then on top of that, and this is still Um, you know, analogous to, to the Beatles in Hamburg is you, you do occasionally have the night off. And when you have the night off, it is Amsterdam and like all of that entails, right? Like the amount of steam we were able to let off together as a group, because like we're doing shows together, there's usually 12 cast members at a time, 5 are needed per night. So you get a lot of like, you know, nights off, but then you'd also have like collective nights off and we'd all collectively go out dancing and it was fantastic.

Paul McCartney, I've heard him talk about the shows in Hamburg. as like the best ever, and they were doing— they were performing for hours and hours and hours. It wasn't like come in, perform for an hour, go home. I mean, they're doing like the 6 o'clock show, the 8 o'clock show, the 10 o'clock show, the 1 o'clock show in the morning, and he talks about it with such fondness and love, and they're singing in German.

Yeah.

I mean, if anybody's ever seen the old footage of the Beatles performing in Hamburg, it's absolutely incredible. It's all the songs we know, but in German.

Yeah.

I can't remember specifically what he talked about, but he talked about the purity of the performing. That yes, it was incredible for them to be in Shea Stadium performing, but they— he said, like, you couldn't hear anything. Like, we could barely hear what we were singing. There's no way anybody else could hear anything. It was the spectacle of it, but it wasn't the performance.

Yeah.

And he talked about Hamburg being, as a performer, just like pure magic.

It's part of what's great about doing something where you have no thought about advancement or career. Like, you're just—

It's the joy of the thing, right?

It's just the joy of the thing, it's the joy of the moment, it's the connection with that audience at that time, and nothing else exists. And oddly enough, by not thinking about the future, sometimes that's how you're better in the future.

I think this idea is really lost on young people today, and it's not their fault. There's so much pressure to perform, to make it, How many followers do you have? Do you, you know, like metric, metric, metric, achieve, achieve, achieve. I mean, I've talked to people, I'm like, hey, why don't you take a gap year before you go to college, you know? And they're like, no, I could never do that. I'm like, why not? They're like, I'll be behind. I'm like, behind what?

Yeah.

Like, it's— everything's comparative. I just talked to somebody recently who wanted some advice, you know. She said to me, she came to me with her vision, she's like, I'm starting a podcast. I'm like, great, what's What's the goal? She's like, I want to have a media empire. I'm like, okay, I love it. Love a vision. Yeah, I love an outsized unrealistic vision. We've all had them, you know. And then so she wants to know what steps she has to take in her podcast to serve her media empire. And of course, I mean, you know exactly where the advice is going. It's like, why don't you just start by making a good podcast and don't worry about the media empire?

Yeah.

And we talked it through, and I think there's an underappreciation of for the joy of the beginnings of our careers. And I see it a lot in very senior people, people who've made it. The lawyer who knows how to win the case, the investor who knows how to make a deal, the, the screenwriter who knows how to write a script. I look at a lot of these people who've made it and they're bored. They're bored because sure, there's challenges now and then, but what they miss was this, was the beginning. What they missed was that was the fun, and it was stressful, and you're full of ambition and piss and vinegar, and you had no idea where it was going. And it was— it goes back to the Beatles in Hamburg. It's the purity of what we were learning to do was so much fun. And when you're good at it, it's just not as fun anymore.

Yeah. And that comes from, you know, perhaps the fact that you are working, you know, with With that adrenaline, like, to the limit of your potential, really. You know, it's like, it's that churn of—

You have no fear.

Giving your full self to something.

Yeah.

Because there is nothing else. And yeah, it rewards you. On the topic of gap year real quick, when people would come to me here asking like, hey, should I do one in Chicago? I'm like, oh my God, yes, you should. In fact, don't— but don't just go for one year. The first year you're adjusting. Go for 2 years, 'cause the second year, that's when you get it. That's when you should go. And they'd be like, oh God, but if, you know, I'm gonna lose progress in my career here. And someone had said this to me, I wish I could remember who, but I've said it to many people since then, like, wherever you're leaving, when you come back, it's gonna be the same. It's gonna be the exact same that it was before, and you won't have missed anything. And whatever opportunities are, you know, fated for you, they are fated regardless, you know? And if you just come back an even better performer than you are today, then you're gonna get more gigs. And I found that to be true. you know, every time I left LA, because again, I would leave often to, you know, go to Amsterdam for a while. And yeah, nothing changed anytime.

It's such— these are such good and nuanced points, right? Which is we fear that we're going to miss out on the thing that's in our imagination.

Yeah, right.

It's like, well, if I'm not in LA, I'm going to miss the audition that hasn't happened and may or may not happen. And this belief that if I stay, all the doors will open and all the auditions will go my way, and if I leave, I'm gonna lose out on all those opportunities. And so you're looking at real opportunity, go and do this thing in Amsterdam that's real work, versus stay here for your imagination, and people choose imagination. I'm confused by that.

To offer that view some grace a little bit, 'cause what is imagination but a plan, you know, a plan and a vision, and like, this is what I saw that I was doing, and now you're asking me to open up this part and go do this and come back.

'Cause my plan was Chicago, you know, do the thing, Do the shows, improv, and you've thrown my plan off.

Yeah, because I think, like, if I, you know, looking back at my path, which has worked out, and in the end I wouldn't change anything, but I know where I could have made a couple smarter choices. I think inarguably did not have enough of a plan. Like, after the spontaneity of Amsterdam, you know, had such great personal rewards for me, you know, just as a person and As a grown-up, I think I kind of like stayed spontaneous a little too long in LA. So like, I can see the value of having a plan, but I guess it's like, don't be so locked into your plan that you don't recognize an opportunity.

It's kind of like strong opinions loosely held, right?

Yeah.

Like, have a plan, but be open to going off the plan.

That's the way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll be right back, but first we want to share an ad with authenticity brought to you by SAP. Curiosity is a practice, not a personality trait. That's what I learned when I sat down with David Robinson. From engineering to innovation to cloud ERP to his current role as President of Customer Success in North America, every jump he made was driven by the itch, the desire to learn something new. I've always been very just naturally curious. I don't— I never gave it much I rarely say no. And, you know, in a lot of cases I might learn really fast, it's not something I ever want to do again. But in other cases, that's like a great experience I can draw upon because that experience then almost is like a currency. You now have something to talk about that you wouldn't have had otherwise. You know, every work review I had, they always told me I was unfocused. You know, they would say to me things like, you know, Simon, a jack of all trades is a master of none. I recently learned that That that's only half the quote. The full quote is, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but a master of many is better than a master of one. That's the full quote. That's the full quote. And I realized I'm not unfocused, I'm just curious. And I think what a lot of people don't appreciate, the value of curiosity, is it doesn't have to succeed. You just have to try. Trying is the success. And trying is the success. Trying is the success. And you can't have innovation without curiosity. Sure. Because if the this is the way we've always done it, then you'll never know if there's a better way. I mean, we have to talk about it because, you know, the 5th season's— it's 5th season?

4th.

4th season. I'm projecting. I have a plan. I have a vision.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's what I want.

Oh, that could be great.

Yeah, that's what I want for you. Yeah. But the 4th season is here now of Ted Lasso. How much of the show, because a lot of it is your own passions, in that show, football being one. Where did this show come from?

In 2013, NBC asks Jason to be part of their ad campaign because they've just gotten the rights for the English Premier League. He said, all right, I'll do it if I can bring along anyone I want. And they, they said, yeah, of course. And so he grabs me and Joe Kelly. All 3 of us are Americans who are sports fans who went to Amsterdam and, having not given a crap about soccer before, like, got into it to some degree. Now, because I was in Amsterdam for 5 years, And because I can get really attached to a new hobby, I became a zealot. I overeducated myself. I would watch like really meaningless games.

Lots of orange clothing.

Lots of orange clothing. Oh my god, my closet looks like a fucking traffic cone factory. We had a meeting with this ad company and they had like 3 sort of just sheets of paper of like, we think it should be a college football coach and he could be doing this thing, or he could be doing this thing, or he could be doing this thing. And this thing over here was he's the coach of a Premier League team even though he knows nothing about soccer. And Jason's like, Yeah, okay, let's pick that. All right, thank you. And then him and me and Joe just sat by the pool one day and like thought of bits. And Jason's like, I think his name is Lasso. Ted Lasso. Yeah, great. Because Jason likes, you know, nouns as last names. You know, largely just took the job because I was like, wow, we get to go to England for 3 days. Go to England, shoot this thing, come back. And it's, you know, on the scale of what it was, because I don't think it was even a broadcast commercial, it was only on YouTube.

But it was for an English audience?

It was for an American audience, but aware that an English audience might be watching.

Got it.

Basically, like, we were—

Because you exaggerated the American stereotypes.

Yeah, we were trying to be, you know, we were trying to be the English view of what Americans thought.

That's exactly what it feels like.

In hopes that Americans would get a kick out of that. So they had us come back and do another one the next year. And yeah, the first one was just a sketch. It was a loud character. Like, we got 6 minutes out of that character and that's all we could have gotten. But the second time we found Ted Lasso in like a— with a sense of like loss, like he didn't have this job anymore. Now he really loved England. And also now he's coaching a girls team and he's like really sensitive to like to their needs and stuff and just kind of opened this new window to the character in a bigger way than we thought. And after that, Jason, you know, gathers me and Joe's like, there's something else here. I don't know what it is. If it's more commercials, if it's a movie, if it's a TV show. So we map out a season, 6 episodes and 6 episodes— I mean, really just the first 6, but then we're imagining 6 more and then like a special, which is the exact model of the UK Office. We wrote a pilot and it sat there for a very long time. Now, going back a little further, part of why Jason wanted us in there is because, you know, we're sports guys who would talk about sports and then eventually about soccer, but also very specifically, by the time Jason got to Amsterdam, I was already in the weeds soccer-wise, and I had decided I was a soccer missionary for all Americans. And so I would be explaining soccer stuff to him through American sports terms, like, because he bought a PlayStation and FIFA for the green room, and it had classic teams on it. And I'm like, okay, '72 Ajax, that's like the Showtime Lakers. And this Johan Cruyff guy, he's like Magic Johnson. He's like, okay, got it. And that paradigm of me using American examples to explain, you know, soccer things.

Mm-hmm.

Remains the basis for the, for the lasso-beard relationship still to this day, which is just another weird part of the whole payoff of Amsterdam, you know, because surely me watching all these soccer games, you know, me watching fucking Leeds versus Burnley, you know, at 3 o'clock on a Sunday was a waste of time, wasn't it? But in fact—

You're wasting your life!

But in fact, all these little You know, data entries in the soccer encyclopedia in my brain have paid off enormously.

But this goes right back to the thing we were talking about at the beginning, which is everything contributes to everything, right? Who's to know that the going deep and, you know, wasting countless hours, you know, watching Dutch football would then become the relationship between these 2 characters that have become beloved on American television. I mean, this is what I love. This goes back to what we were saying before, which is, you know, you fall in love with the vision of the imagination, but what we forget is like all of it contributes to everything. You said like you go, you hone your craft, you come back, you're better. Everything in our lives has some sort of purpose later on, but who's to know what it will be? And without these weird decisions of spontaneity, none of this would exist. I'm sort of fascinated by the I don't know what it is. Like, what we're talking about is things that are off the plan, and I think we're sort of too obsessed with plans. Your whole story leading up to this was like, I knew from a little kid I wanted to be an actor, and the adrenaline of the stage, you know, and the adrenaline of the audience. And then you realize you could write, and you can express all this creativity. And the Amsterdam thing was 2 things, which was, I get to do the thing that I love to do, check, and I get to run away from shit that I don't want to do.

check.

And there's this kind of magic which is— they're not necessarily good quote-unquote career decisions when the career coach or the, you know, parent is sitting down with you. Like, this is my goal. I'm gonna do English comedy in Amsterdam, and I'm gonna leave all my problems here and just go start a new life and screw it. And like, nobody's looking at you going, I think you got this one all figured out, bud.

Yeah.

Everybody's gonna be looking at you like, what are you talking about? And I think where I'm arriving, and this is why I'm sort of enjoying this, which is, who knows?

Yeah.

You know, who knows what would have happened if you stayed? Who knows what, you know, who knows?

Yeah.

You know?

And I think about that often, and like, because the flip side of it is also like, if once I left Amsterdam, shouldn't I have just gone back to Chicago and gotten, you know, tried to get on the Second City train?

And get to, yeah, exactly, go through the—

Yeah. But also like, you know, maybe even if I did it, maybe I was too high-strung then, and I would have pissed people off, or, you know, like maybe I wasn't the person yet who would have been able to make the most of that opportunity. The chaos theory of it, of like the different ways that things could have gone better or worse, you know, you can lose sleep over that completely. But yeah, sometimes just going with the flow is right.

In a time where drama and conflict is the thing, you know, The Great British Baking Show, The Bake Off. I think it's probably some of the finest television that was ever made in the history of television. Not— I'm saying this to somebody who—

No, we know our place.

Okay, I was just— Ted Lasso's, I promise you, a close second.

Thank you.

But the reason is, is because it's a competition. There are winners, there are losers. Somebody gets voted off the island every week, and yet they help each other. And I think that is, for me, the metaphor for life, which is absolutely compete, absolutely work hard to advance yourself, and help each other along the way. That to me is the metaphor for life and the metaphor for career. And the thing that I think we all fell in love with the Ted Lasso show, which is it's a show about optimism, it's a show about positivity, it's a show about taking care of each other, which is quite different than what especially American television, you know, reality TV show where they make people seem evil in the editing and they create artificial conflict for our entertainment.

Yeah.

And it's a very European thing to have a show that's quite positive without all the artificial conflict, where it's a very American thing to, you know, instigate.

Yeah.

And I don't know, was that because the 3 of you had European experience? Is it because you were frustrated in your own lives? Like, where did that doubling down on optimism, which is a very un-American way to make a TV show, where was that? Because we're grateful for it.

Well, thank you. The kernel of it for For me, and you know my kernel is is probably smaller than Joe's and definitely smaller than Jason's. But was you know if we're going to have this show, you know at the time like we're you know after the commercials and we're making it a larger project. We're going to have this show in this American in this European world. How's he going to stand out? You know there's nothing Europeans find more annoying about Americans than their chipperness. Like the believe sign is is a is an example. The belief sign is a distillation of what was going to be a larger idea of Ted putting up like 1,000, like corporate, you know, keep at it type slogans, you know, hang in there, meow, like, like all those and just how much that would infuriate, um, uh, you know, a footballer like Roy Keane.

Right.

And, you know, that just kind of just got distilled down like, okay, well, you know, it's not like all English people are grumps.

We're not saying that necessarily, but they, uh, they're not as cheery But there's a stiff upper lip thing, you know, they put up with shit better than anybody on the planet.

Yeah, and sort of accidentally that, that is really where the culture clash of the show is more than like he doesn't know, you know, what side of the street to look at when he crosses the street. Is that, that was the American quality that was sort of then organically the part of it like this, just this Midwestern-ness, you know.

Yeah.

And this Midwestern-ness in a competitive world that wants no part of it whatsoever until it does.

We had a company offsite and we did all these personality profiles of the entire team and the entire company, and they evaluated like, you know, do we have the right mix of the right personalities to make a good team and all of this stuff. And at the end, the, the, uh, what do they call them, the evaluators, the administrators. Yeah, the ministers. Yeah, exactly. They said, well, we've got some bad news. Like, if your company were a personality, you'd be Ted Lasso. And we were all like, that's awesome. That is awesome. And we were diagnosed as Ted Lasso as a company.

Why was it bad news?

Because we didn't have enough, like, grrr, you know? Like, we didn't have enough backstabby, you know? Like, we scored very poorly on, like, Aggression, cutthroat, cutthroaty, you know. And, and I gotta say, as, as the owner of the business, I was really proud, you know, because, you know, we're called the Damn Optimism Company. Not that damn isn't in the word, but that would be hilarious. I'm changing the name to the Damn Optimism Company.

Oh boy, the paperwork is going to be ridiculous.

But I can do it. You can do a DBA.

Okay, fine.

But we're called the Optimism Company, and to be diagnosed as Ted Lasso was one of the greatest victories I think I've achieved culturally. I'm curious, for actors, you know, we fall in love with the characters you play. That is sometimes the person, but sometimes way not the person.

Mm-hmm.

How important was it for you to make sure that, like, did you want to play somebody completely different to you? Did you want to bring yourself into it? You're, you're one of the writers, you can do whatever the hell you want. I'm so curious, as a writer and as a performer, where is the overlap? Because, I mean, you know way more actors than I do, and they are not the characters they play, and yet we treat them as the characters. Who is the guy who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones? I think he got out of the game because people were just mean to him the whole time because they thought he was an asshole.

He's playing a character. He's back in the business now. But he took a long— He has said that that is not entirely true. He's now saying that he really legitimately just was going to school and he wanted to go to school and focus on that. But it's also true that people were not like that.

People didn't— and people didn't like him. Yeah, specifically, you know, they're like yelling at him while he's walking down the street, the poor kid. And that's my point, like, we confuse the characters you play with who you are. I'm so curious as to, is that a good thing? Is it about like, how much of you is Coach Beard? And that you did that because you wanted that, or did you just want to play somebody just for fun that's nothing like you? Like people who like playing bad guys.

He's, uh, on the outside, not like me in that, you know, he doesn't talk much and he's happy to sit and wait. I am a blabbermouth and, um, and I tend to like, you know, well, like wanna go do something. But he is very much like me in that, you know, I've, he's had an atypical path to his current moment in his career. And so have I. And so we've sort of taken that and exploded it basically. You know, I certainly haven't been in a lumberjack competition, nor have I won a chess competition.

But is this kind of like write what you know kind of thing?

To a degree, there's a little bit of Jason in Ted Lasso as well, or vice versa, I guess one of the two. That dynamic we discussed earlier of me explaining soccer in American flashcard terms is really us. So it just followed that then Beard's just a little bit like me. And the evolution of his character has been kind of another random path. When we were first writing The first commercial, I had pictured it that like I was gonna have a bunch of you know stuff to say and we'd have these back and forths. And Joe Kelly, who is a genius, Joe Kelly was like, "Bad news, man. You you shouldn't talk." Like what? Yeah, you you.

But I'm an actor.

I mean, he's gonna be doing like all the talking and speechifying, and the coach who runs the room. You need to be the guy who comes in surgically with with just like you know the word that. that hits. Like, oh, that's 100% right. And that also dovetails with something Josie O'Reilly would talk a lot about at Boom! Is like watching a scene, you know, before you enter that scene, ask what does it need? And so Beard is like the manifestation of what does it need? He just waits. And like, right now, Ted needs me to learn the rules of soccer. Got that. And like, now what does it need is I gotta go talk to this Nate guy, you know? And there's a wonderful like selflessness to that that I think is pretty fun. But he's only named Beard because He didn't have a name in the first commercial. You know, he's never referred to. Second commercial, he's referred to and like, what should his name be? And again, we love nouns. So it's Coach Beard. But that's only because I had a beard in the first one. And I only had that beard because I happened to be doing a play that I had written where I played a homeless person. And first time in my life I'd ever have a beard. And because I happened to write that play, now I can never shave again.

So it was a placeholder. It was like, he's got a beard, colon beard. Was it a placeholder?

It wasn't a placeholder so much as it was like inspiration. Yeah, it was like, it doesn't really matter. Look at the thing. Beard. Nice beard. He's beard. Great. He's beard. We didn't know we were gonna do even another commercial more than, certainly not a whole TV series by this point. So there was no sense that it would stick. In terms of the larger question of like, is it important to me for a character in this dynamic of like being able to contribute to the story?

Because you get to write whatever you want.

Yeah. Again, when I was in college, we were awash in Steppenwolf quotes and there was a John Malkovich quote I remember hearing sophomore year which was acting is not about trying to become someone you aren't, it's about being someone you are, which I, you know, as a sophomore especially, I was like, whoa. But that's really just, you know, bring yourself to the character.

Like, who would I be in this position?

Yeah. I don't, don't have a symmetrical face. Like, I'm not going to be a lead on most TV shows, which means in polite casting agent terms, I am specific. So I'm going to be playing a lot of eccentric characters. And sure enough, if you go to my IMDb, it'll literally say evil clown, sex murderer, hitchhiker. And so since I get to play all these sort of off-center people, it's a little easier then to bring myself to it. It's not like you're Hamlet, you're Hamlet, you were a prince and your dad died, go. I'm trying to find what's different about me from this character and inhabit that, but also, you know, on my secret insides, a little bit like me one way or another. And with Beard, we've just been able to extend that to like, okay, I went to college in Central Illinois, so he's from Central Illinois. I went to Europe for a while and things got a little nuts. And we haven't maybe quite gotten to that with Boom. Oh no, we have with Beard, cuz now we know that he knows Dutch. And, and if you put him in Amsterdam, by the end of the night, he's gonna have a David Bowie costume.

Well played, by the way.

Thank you.

That episode was, uh, well played.

My favorite. So yeah, it wasn't really a choice or a preference. That is nothing, that's just the way it worked out. But I think my instinct, even unconsciously, you know, if I was to write characters for myself going forward, I would still be including a fair amount of myself in them.

Yeah, I'm so fascinated by— I'm not a performer. I've never acted, although some would argue because I stand on stage, I'm a performer.

You're a natural, baby!

I'm fascinated by the art of acting and the idea of bringing yourself. And, you know, some of the things that I find very difficult about acting which is how do you play a part when you know everything that's gonna happen? You know, it's like somebody's about to burst in the door and surprise you. You know that, but you have to pretend that you didn't. Like, that concept is mind-blowing to me, and it's amazing how few people are good at it because they know, you know, and they can't help confuse it. And I'm fascinated by the, like, where you want yourself in it and where you don't. Where's the line where you sort of let go? As an actor.

Oh, well, does that, does that, I'm— Yeah. The notion of, I would never do that is one that I think like an actor can't really let them have, even no matter how well you know this character, even like, you better think twice before you say that because like, you might not normally do that, but here are circumstances that are putting you in a position where you have to do that.

Right.

You know, whatever, whatever it is.

Something horrible even.

Yeah, exactly. Where is your line? Like, where is your line that would get you to this point where you would do this thing that you wouldn't ordinarily do? Because this person's line is here. So find that border for yourself.

I think that's where I would struggle as an actor, because I struggle to disconnect myself from the character. It was like, like, you know, a character that would, you know, do something horrible, violent, or immoral, and I was like, but I would never, you know, I could— I can't imagine doing this. Then I say, well, I guess I could play a character doing that. You're like, no, no, no, no, you have to find the circumstance that you would actually do that to play this effectively. And that's what I have such respect for, that you're willing to let your mind go to some pretty dark places to find the motivation to play these characters effectively. I guess that's the craft.

Yeah. And, and also, you know, and Jason talks about this a lot too, but like, we're very, we're very fortunate that we are having this, you know, big ride on characters who are super nice, you know.

Fair point.

Like, I'm not getting stopped in an airport for King Joffrey reasons.

People are cheering you when you walk past.

Yeah, they're not, they're not waiting to poison my drink.

Right.

Because they know that's the only way to kill me.

As an actor, you know, was there a character you played where it challenged you, the person?

The hardest I've struggled was, you know, to play a part— might not technically be what you're asking for again because like it is another thing that I wrote— but the play I wrote where I had the beard called Absolutely Filthy, and the conceit of it is that it's the Pigpen gang as grown-ups but focused on Pigpen. Excuse me, the Peanuts gang has grown up and focusing on Pigpen.

Yeah.

And Pigpen is still dirty. He's so dirty that he's homeless and he's a little bit mentally disturbed. And he finds himself in front of a church where they're having the funeral for Charlie Brown and the whole gang are coming back to this, but they won't let him in because he's disgusting and they're all doing fine. There was a lot of me in that and what my life was at the time, which, you know, was not even conscious when I had the idea. But now looking back, it's, you know, it's not even dime store psychology. It'll cost barely a nickel is like, that was me feeling worthless because so many of my peers were doing so well. And so the, the play has a lot of like speeches and, you know, crazy guy revving himself up on a street corner type of stuff. And like, it was not my biography by any means, but it still was like—

How you felt.

Plumbing, you know, plumbing a bit of like, like how fucking shitty I felt sometimes about how things were. And this again was, you know, pre-therapy, you know, almost exactly pre-therapy, 'cause then like a year later I got a shrink.

So now you're writing happy shit.

Oh yeah, now I'm a fucking, I'm a dreamboat. But—

He goes from writing being a homeless guy to being a coach.

But like getting into that every single night, 'cause that show did pretty well, well enough to run a few different places. And by the way, footnote, the conceit for his cloud of dirt, the ever-present Pigpen cloud of dirt, was that's when I learned to be a really good hula hooper. So I had a hula hoop, and I would hula hoop the whole show. and no one would ever mention it or acknowledge it. And, uh, yeah, well, you know, that's when I found out, oh, hula hooping, great for the core. Oh, my abs, my abs in 2012, Simon. Oh, you should have seen them. They glistened. They're beautiful. Going into yourself can be just as hard as trying to, you know, get into someone else.

What's the project that you worked on, commercially successful or not, of all of the things you've done in your career, that if you had one thing that was like this all the time, like you'd be the happiest person alive. Like something that was just— you look back at your career and be like, I wish everything was like that one.

The next play I wrote was called The Art Couple, and The Art Couple was basically— it was Neil Simon before he's written The Odd Couple, before he's super famous, wanting to be more of an artist. And so he imagines The Art Couple, or he imagines The Odd Couple, but at the same time he finds out that Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were mismatched roommates in the south of France. And so, his first draft of The Odd Couple is not about Felix and Oscar, it's about Vinnie and Paulie. And the play alternated between being set in Greenwich Village in the '60s as he's writing it, and then seeing some of the play, which, you know, had a degree of like shot by shot, you know, from The Odd Couple, but being these 2 French dudes. I played Van Gogh, had a really good time. We had this great cast. And like right now I'm doing the solo show Movement You Need, which might be coming to Broadway 2027. And it's so fun and so incredible to do. But if I had to pick one, I would rather have this one where I get to hang out with other people, you know, because this was a cast of 9 and everybody was great and everyone was so funny. And I made sure everyone had a lot of stuff to do. But then also it got— it was about to move to a big theater in LA and it got canceled for COVID. Like, we were set to open March 18th of that year. The sets were up. We were 2 days away from tech weekend. And then suddenly, at this rehearsal, all we can talk about is the odd combination of Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert, because those guys had that COVID we've all been hearing of. And the next day, everything, everything shut down.

What was it about that play, of all the incredible things you've done in your career, and you've had a storied career, and now like one of the most popular shows on television, You know, what was it about this play that stands out amongst all those things, that that's the thing you wish it was— you want more of, you want more of that please in your career?

I guess because it was still something where I'm, you know, contributing, you know, a ton to it. I think that's important. I wouldn't want to be doing something forever that, you know, I can coast on. And it's not solitary. And I guess the only reason I wouldn't choose Lasso per se is because like the Lasso gig, like, it takes a lot. out of us, like those of us especially who are like in the cast and also writers and also producers. It's a real bear, you know, and gotta relocate your family for a long time and all these things. And like, worth it, love it. If you're asking me what's my favorite gig I've ever had, that's my favorite gig I've ever had. But if I was to do one thing for the rest of my life, it would be a play like Our Couple.

Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something specific that I can relive with you.

Sure. In late January of 1986, which— and every Sunday back then My parents divorced when I was 2. My mom remarried in '83. My dad came back around, and we would see him every Sunday, me and my younger sister. But this particular Sunday, mom woke me up earlier than usual. She says, get up, your dad's taking you to the game. The game was the NFC Championship Game between the '85 Bears and the LA Rams. I'd been to one Bears game like years earlier that I didn't even remember, and I was besotted with the '85 Bears. I absolutely loved that team. And I was looking forward to watching the game with Dad. I mean, Dad was not the most resourceful cat at the time. You know, he did not have a regular job as far as I knew. For him to somehow find tickets was beyond imagination. And yeah, we had a complicated relationship as life went on especially, but that day, just a day of, you know, so much joy. And I never let go of the surprise of the day. Like the surprise of getting that news when I woke up was part of it all the way through to Wilbur Marshall scoring his touchdown. And like, holy shit, my dad did this. Now, he then, not intentionally, we sort of then traded on that success for a very long time before I began to consider some other, you know, misdemeanors. But that, that was a mind-blowing day.

Of all the cool things, you mean you had happy times in your life, in your childhood. What was it specifically about that one?

Part of it was the, was the event. Part of it was the fact that they actually won and they didn't just win. They shut out the Rangers 24-nothing after having shut out the Giants.

You would have, you would have had that experience if you watched on television. Of the Bears winning.

Yes, but it's, but it's magnified by being there. And because like the Bears weren't just something I was enjoying, like we would watch the Bears every Sunday, you know, unless they had a Thursday night game or Monday night game. Yeah, so that was married to the rebuilding of my relationship with my dad, was going to, you know, him and my grandma's house and having these Sundays, you know, built around, you know, either watching the Bears or if it wasn't NFL season, around watching Like rawhide.

Yeah.

So for Dad to come through in that unexpected way and then for the Bears to come through, because like at that, at that time, you know, I still never experienced a championship and this was still a city of choking teams. In '83 and '84 consecutively, the Sox and Cubs both lost in the championship series. To get the double dose of wins was awesome. And I remember like walking towards Soldier Field with my dad and like just the mayhem of everyone walking around. It wasn't the same as going, you know, to a regular Cubs game, you know.

And what was it about the play of the— what is the— Paulie and Vinny, Vinny and Paulie. Of all the cool things you've done in your career and all, like, I mean, talk to me more specifically about what it was about that that you just cling on to with such, you know, such nostalgia, with such, you know, you have such a connection to it.

Definitely, like, you know, it's the loose end because it got canceled.

Sure.

Getting to play with others, it's sort of a sneakily personal show too because it is about on some level, a dichotomy of like, you know, being an artist who doesn't give a shit and being someone who's very aware of their audience. Because Sam Shepard becomes a character in it as well. And Sam Shepard, who, you know, was largely popularized by Steppenwolf and like that connection there. So like, it's— and Neil Simon, when he wrote this play, was a TV writer. It's the part of me that, you know, has grown up into someone who like has, you know, Lasso considerations in the world and like, you know, all this like crowd pleasing. And the part of me that, you know, came to my artistic self at a school that didn't have on-camera classes, you know, like sort of the dirty way of doing things and the clean way of doing things. So like, it's not— it's a comedy, but it's, it, it's not one that is removed from my soul, you know. There's some of my soul in there too. And yeah, I don't know, hearing people's laughs is, is, is more fun than—

But you've done comedy You've done all those, you've heard people's laughs, you've written things before. Some of the things you wrote were semi-autobiographical. Like, I'm trying to sort of get at what specifically was about that one play that you just have such warmth towards it.

I don't know.

Given all the success of Ted Lasso, you'd think, you know, you'd say, oh, Ted Lasso, of course, you know, but this play that didn't even get to the big stage, yet you just look at it and be like, oh, more of that, please.

I mean, maybe because it was like my last thing that I, you know, loved doing before Lasso wiped out everything, you know, in a way, and then took over and became the life down under that it is.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, like, oh, 'cause, 'cause that, you know, that doing that play at that scale, like, I hope it comes back in a bigger scale someday.

Sure.

But, but doing shows at that scale, that's what I had been doing since, I mean, really since college. So like since 1989. And that was my last time doing that and probably will be my last time doing that. I mean, I have this one show that I've been building, et cetera, et cetera. And that kind of went through that phase. But it's more— if you're asking me to, again, to do what I'm doing the rest of my life, I don't want to do a solo show for the rest of my life. Like, I do want to— I do want to have, you know, playmates in the playground with me.

There's a— the thing that I'm taking away from this whole conversation with you, and I think it's the thing that I really am drawn to you as a writer, as an artist, is there's a purity about you. There's a purity in your work, you know. You know, you go back to the beginnings of, like, the honing of the craft, the 10,000 hours, And like the fact that you have the kind of commercial success now on one of the most successful shows in television that you would think would be the dream, you know, and of course you love it, you're grateful for it, you have fun with it. Yes, yes, yes. Notwithstanding, but as an artist, there's the purity of just, as you said, sort of playing with other creative people and the way you rattle off people's names with such respect, people who some of us know and some of us don't, but you carry the names of people who are— and you refer to more than one person, you know, as a genius. And you have such respect for art and the craft and creative people and the making of craft. You're writing shows about other artists, about Neil Simon and Charles Schulz. You've got Peanuts and you've got The Odd Couple, and you're writing sort of these variations on other people's works. You're taking a look at their characters, and you said it's where— it's— you're not playing these characters, the homeless guy per se, but like there's the emotion. And this is the purity of art, isn't it? Which is that's finding that nugget. And looking for where else you can find it and bringing it to life through these familiar things, even the stereotypes of the way the Europeans and the Americans relate to each other. And I just think, you know, in this day and age of pursuit of followers, pursuit of fame, pursuit of contracts, you know, on major streamers, sort of like what's happening to all the artists, the purity of artists, we're not really investing in small things anymore. You know, they're taking big bets on famous people and things like that. And I really, really, really, really hope that you continue to write, whether they become big stage or small stage. I really hope you continue to write stuff like you have been writing. Like, I want to see them. I'm kind of annoyed that they're not available.

Well, that's all very kind of you to say. And I guess now is when I got to tell you, I just use AI. It's all AI now. You know, it's just so much faster. I got kids, you know, like, let's not be purists about this, really. Like, come on, we got to be practical.

And on that note, I have to ask questions.

Oh, sure. That's your milieu.

That's my milieu. Well done!

Been sitting on that.

Well done! What's it called in comedy when you bring— when you go full circle?

Classic callback, Simon!

Classic callback. Well done. In The Movement You Need, you show how humor has been a tool to get through the hard stuff. When did comedy transform from being something you did into something you needed?

Probably from the first times I was making my mom laugh. Like, my mom was, as I talk about Movement You Need, you know, she was, I mean, she was a mom, of course, she's a person, and so a label like this is rather reductive, but she's an alcoholic, and her version of alcoholism would make her like a bit mean, and I know now that she was just, she was transmitting the parenting that she got. But the times when I made her laugh, sometimes by accident as a kid, were like the best, you know? It was like, holy shit, I just made mom laugh. Okay. And that is absolutely what has, you know, set me on my path. And it took me a very long time to realize that. I really realized it, you know, probably since writing Movement You Need. And maybe that's why I want to be doing Art Couples, because yeah, the sound, the sound of laughter is better than just shooting something and and hoping people laugh later on their own.

I get that. It's one of the bad things, one of the sad things of like writing books or making videos is I don't get to see or hear the impact. And when people come up to me and be like, your book had an impact on me, it's like, I'm— it's, it's— I'm always excited because I didn't get to— I wasn't there.

Yeah. The first time we got to attend a screening of a Ted Lasso episode, which wasn't until season 2 because of COVID things.

Yeah.

It was like so jarring, you know, because we've been doing this show You know, it's on our own for a while, but then hearing a full theater of 500 people, whatever it was, was like, oh shit, this is— people really do like this. Okay, this is all right.

We're all very excited for season 4 of Ted Lasso. A lasting message from the first 3 seasons is that belief is something you give people before they've earned it. Now that Ted and Beard are coaching a women's soccer team, how did the believe message show up in your approach to this new story?

You know, people sort of are like, you know, we're getting asked the sort of like questions, and I don't mean by interviews, but like by, you know, just friends and family really. They don't quite come out and say it, but I know what they're saying of like basically a version of like, are you gonna win an Emmy? You know, again, like that kind of stuff. And like we never gave a shit about any of that when we were making the show. And like, we're not gonna start now.

Mm-hmm.

But we also—

you mean purity?

Oh, darn your data points. And you know, here we are, we're, we're not entirely starting over, but we're starting, we're kind of starting over, you know, like with this, with this new team and, and a lot of new stuff. And yeah, you just on a base level have to, you know, the flip side of believe is, is, is trust. You know, we just gotta trust the work and put our heads down and, and trust our instincts and trust the, you know, the people in the writer's room and then the people in the studio and the people on the set. So yeah, just that's where the belief is for me.

There's a great quote of yours. The conclusion you first draw about someone is often informed merely by what you're bringing to it, and it will lead to your underestimating the full depth of the people you have so judged. What's the other side of unlearning that? What kind of relationship or life does it make possible?

Wow, that is a complicated sentence.

I mean, that is—

where the fuck did I say that? Sheesh.

Remember that time you said—

Yeah, we were drunk at 3 clubs that time.

You were recording.

Jesus. Yeah, I think people often forget that their shit stinks too. One of the nicest compliments I ever got was from a friend who was one side of a divorce of a marriage between 2 friends. You know, one of the first, like, oh, 2 of our friends are getting married, not just your friend marrying someone who you're gonna get to know. And then they got divorced, and, you know, because we were, you know, younger folks, a lot of people, you know, chose their side.

Sure.

I like to think that when people get divorced in their 50s, whatever, you don't do that anymore.

You do.

But I did not choose a side, not really by conscious thought. I just never thought to. Like, they're both my friends. They had a thing. Now, also though, they were not the first people of that generation that I knew to get divorced. That was me. And I got divorced because of mistakes I made. So, you know, a friend said to me, like, you know what I like about— what I appreciate about you, Brendan? You don't pick sides. I mean, that was You know, the literal words. And I was like, oh, I guess I don't. But I— it's because I bet you made mistakes, and I bet you made mistakes, and I know that because I made mistakes. And since everyone's making mistakes, let's assume that we're not bad people and assume that there's a longer journey here for us than just, you know, the bad thing that happened yesterday.

I really, you know, the concept of the morality play is kind of gone, you know. And I, again, you're so thoughtful and there's so— you're so human. In the words you write, the characters you play, the things you write, the ideas you bring. I just really, really, really hope you continue to write lots and lots and lots of things outside of Ted Lasso as well, especially with your new play that might be on Broadway in 2027.

The Moving and Eve, a journey into family and music.

But you, you're so consistent in sort of like staying pure, giving it a whirl, and it may or may not become a thing. And like even the fact that after 4 seasons, with the pressures must be overwhelming on the Ted Lasso writers' room, you know, that you're like, no, no, no, we're just gonna write the thing that we like based on the characters we love, and it'll show up how it shows up, and you'll either like it or you won't, but we're gonna do the best job we can with the tools we've got. And that's the way things are written the first time.

Yeah.

Like everybody's first effort is that, but then the subsequent effort with the pressures and the money and other people involved, Very, very, very hard to maintain that.

Yeah, I mean, it was Jason's call in the long run of like, you know, we're gonna make it a women's team and we're gonna start them at a lower level and, you know, change the show in this fundamental way. But I think that's the only way it would have been interesting to do.

So that's something new for it.

Was to start it differently. And not, yeah, not just new, but also intentionally raising the level of difficulty, basically, of trying to pull it off. And so, Yeah, it definitely was more interesting than if we'd just gone back and, you know, done the same characters again, which would have been fun, you know, to some degree, but not quite as interesting.

I think they all aged out of playing on a professional soccer team.

Yeah, at some point, at some point reality steps in a little bit. Like, no one transferred? No one? Okay.

No one's been injured?

Nothing? Nothing?

Thank you so much for coming on.

Such a joy. Thank you, Sam.

Real pleasure. As always, thank you for watching. If you liked this episode, please subscribe to A Bit of Optimism for more interesting guests and even more interesting conversations. New episodes drop every Tuesday. But if you'd like more optimism right now, click here to watch another episode. Until next time, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.