Ted Lasso: Brendan Hunt on Coach Beard’s Secrets and How Season 3 Might Not Be the End

Liz Shannon Miller
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The post Ted Lasso: Brendan Hunt on Coach Beard’s Secrets and How Season 3 Might Not Be the End appeared first on Consequence.

Ted Lasso star and executive producer Brendan Hunt has been on a bit of a roller coaster for the last year, thanks to the show — a roller coaster that may not be ending as soon as we think. “It’s been absolutely nuts, you know? I mean, we just wanted to do that one commercial. Nine years ago, we got to go to London for three days. Woohoo. Now I can’t get outta this place,” he tells Consequence with a laugh.

Hunt has been involved with Ted Lasso since the Emmy-winning comedy’s beginnings as a series of NBC Sports commercials, starring Jason Sudeikis as the mustachioed American who comes to England to take on what the rest of the world calls football. Now, the series has become a breakout hit for Apple TV+, with Hunt, already an Emmy nominee for his acting work in Season 1, eligible for another Emmy nomination this year for Season 2 — all while production continues on Season 3 in England. (Hunt was wearing his AFC Richmond jersey while speaking to Consequence during a break in production, via Zoom.)

Season 2 put more of the spotlight on Hunt than before, as his taciturn Coach Beard received a breakout episode covering one wild night following a tough loss for the team. “Beard After Hours” was one of the season’s standout installments, a slightly surreal trip into the night, and as Hunt explains it was originally a discarded story idea — and despite being a writer and executive producer on the show, he wasn’t allowed to write it.

Also below, transcribed and edited for clarity, Hunt explains what it’s been like to be thrust into the awards show circuit, why his colleagues Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly were the ones to write “Beard After Hours,” and how he ended up doing an impression of his friend Seth Meyers in an episode of the Hulu revival of Animaniacs. Most importantly, he touches on the fact that while he and the other executive producers have said from the beginning that they had a three-season plan for Ted Lasso… Season 3 may not be the end of the series.

To start off, what has this ride been like for you?

I’ve been at this crazy thing we call showbiz for like a minute or two. And now suddenly, it’s like people come up to you, and want to talk to you and, you know, 99% of the time are lovely. They don’t just like [the show] — it’s touched them in some way. There are just so many wrinkles of this that are unexpected. The fact that it’s done so well, and it’s so popular, that’s one thing, but the fact that it means so much to people — we’re gobsmacked by it. And it just keeps going.

Knowing that the plan for this show has always been a three-season arc — does that add to the emotional pressure of that?

That’s one of those things where intellectually in every way possible and with complete truth, I can say no. But emotionally, it’s probably just not the truth. [Laughs] We want to just show up for work every day and go about our business. We didn’t make a show that people liked because we were coming in here feeling like we had to get it perfect for everybody and to suddenly have that attitude now wouldn’t help the show be better. We have to just continue to just come in and do stuff that, that we like.

But having said that, you know, we are approaching at least the end of this arc and it’s a funny thing. We do want to get it right. We want to be caring with how we give it to people. But also, if we’re too precious about it, or if we worry about getting it all perfect, I just don’t know what good that’s going to do us either. So we’re really kind of caught in the middle there.

Of course. I feel like this is the first time I’ve heard someone talk about the idea that these first three seasons would just be an arc — and that once this arc is completed, another arc is potentially possible.

Yes. Another arc is possible after this, for sure. We have always seen it as some kind of three-beat thing. Originally those three beats were more going to be modeled on what [the British] The Office did, you know, six eps, a special, boom, we’re done. We’ve certainly expanded those beats, but it does not mean that the whole kit and caboodle is getting chucked.

To talk about Season 2 a little bit — you’re of course a writer on the show, but I was surprised that you didn’t actually write the “Beard After Hours” episode.

I did not. I was not allowed anywhere near it.

Why is that?

Great question. I’m not quite sure. Possibly because they saw that I would’ve gotten too precious about it and I would’ve been like, you know, “No, have him do that” or “have him do this,” you know? I think on some level they also just wanted to surprise me with as much of it as they could. But yeah, with most episodes I’m pretty involved in how they get developed, but that one, you know, I was learning things like days before we were shooting them, which is just not how it usually goes here. But that made it, you know, so made it all the more fun and gave me one less thing to stress out about. So, you know, thanks fellas.

Was that just an episode where, you know, you knew that there was a vague idea what the story would be, but you didn’t break it entirely in the writers’ room?

Basically. Yeah. The story was on our discard pile, and then Apple ordered two more episodes after we’d already broken the season. So we had to add two episodes that wouldn’t break the flow of what we’d already put together. So that’s why we had the Christmas episode, and that’s why we have the Beard episode, which were the episodes that we were considering doing anyway and then Apple said to do two more, and those were the ones that got picked.

So it was basically just because we’ve always talked about the idea, from the very beginning of the show, of what does Beard get up to? We’ve constantly pitched little cutaways, things that we can see that are just tiny windows into whatever insanity he’s getting up to, and we just kept deciding against it. So in terms of breaking this episode per se, it was just, yeah, Beard’s bummed out, Beard’s gonna go through some kind of odyssey and he’ll still show up for work in the morning and he’ll probably be a little bit exhausted. That’s about as much as I knew at the beginning.

How many stories do you come up with that do end up on the discard pile? Like, when the two extra episodes got ordered, how many alternatives were there?

If memory serves, there were four or five viable A-stories for an episode. And I can’t remember what the other ones were. Well, no, actually, some have just been slid over into this season, because it was a matter of like, oh, we like these a lot. There’s not quite the room to do them correctly and we don’t want to do them a disservice. So we’ll just slide ’em over. So yeah, we had about 15 total stories. We were like, “All right, we’re gonna do these 10… Oh no, we’ve gotta do these two more.” Just about all of it is still going to come out one way or another.

Going back to the fact that you didn’t get to write the Beard episode — you’re not the only actor in the writers’ room. Is it common practice that the actors who play certain characters take a backseat when it comes to their storylines?

If you’ll pardon the sports term, we definitely pass the ball around in the writers’ room. We want to hear from everyone, and we try to just be a meritocracy about it. Like, the best idea tends to be pretty obvious, and the room tends to go like, “Oh yeah, okay. That’s what we’re doing.”

Generally speaking, if we’re talking about a Beard story, not that there’s very many of those, I’m still gonna talk, and Brett [Goldstein]’s still gonna talk about his thoughts on every Roy situation. And this may shock you, but Jason comes in with a few pre-imposed ideas about what’s gonna happen to Ted.

Wow, who does he think he is?

[Laughs] I know, I know. So I’d say it’s very democratic and everyone is free to talk about, you know, everyone, basically everyone and every element of what we try to put together.

So there’s no possessiveness, like, “I don’t think Coach Beard would say that…”

There might be in like tiny little ways, here and there, but no, nothing major. No one has put their foot down and said, my character wouldn’t do that. Everyone’s game, which is nice.

That being said, are there times when you’re trying to nudge the writing away from something you don’t necessarily want to do yourself?

Oh, for sure. I mean, if there’s stuff we don’t want to do, we’re all free to like up and say it. It is a situation of saying like “Uh, happy to do that if that’s what we end up doing anyway. But not my favorite idea.” But then, you know, two months later you’re doing it with full enthusiasm.

Another thing about “Beard After Hours,” and you touched on this already a bit, is that it does show us a lot more of Beard’s inner life — there are not a ton of characters like this in the television landscape, where you can tell like there’s a lot more to this person than you see. How deeply involved have you been in the development of those aspects of Beard?

In general, it’s a lot of head canon so far, because of how, of how little we get out about him. Jason and I, you know, and Joe Kelly especially will often be like — especially when a scene’s coming up where Ted mentioned something from his past — it’s like, “okay, well, did Beard know about that? Did we know each other at that time? Was that when we were together when we were apart?”

But yeah, it’s almost a luxury, being able to just make up whatever I want it to be, because there’s almost no written declaration that will go against whatever my private decisions are. I do enjoy the little things we add, like what little we know about Beard’s mom in particular. When the details come out, I do cling to them.

Is it looking like the new season’s going to be out by the end of the year?

That’s stuff that I don’t know, that’s above my pay grade. I don’t know how even important that is or is not. Certainly Apple is very supportive of this show and they want it to be out as quickly as possible. We’ve started the post process on the early episodes and like, we’re starting to see cuts. That treadmill’s moving. I don’t know if it’ll move fast enough for this year or not, but I’m also like, that would just be another unnecessary thought to bog my mind down. [Laughs]

We don’t have Apple execs walking around the studio going, “Hey guys, you know…” because they recognize that it’s at least the end of an arc… They’re being very generous. They want us to get it right. So, yeah, we will do what we need to do to get that done.

What’s been the thing that most surprised you, about being thrust into the awards circuit?

The Emmys for me were like in two parts — the part of the night after which I had drunk enough and the part before because getting there, I was super tense. Something that I didn’t know is that you can just go up to the tables of other shows, because it was set up in a way that’s not usually the set up, but you could go over there and you could just say hello to those people. But I just sat there super duper tense.

At one point Patrick Stewart comes to our table — he’s looking at me and I’m like, “Oh, [gasp] Patrick Stewart.” But then I realize, oh, he’s looking at me because Jason’s currently talking to someone else and he’s killing time here. And I go, “Uh, just one moment, Mr. Stewart,” and then [whispers] “Hey Jason, pay attention to Patrick Stewart.” I was just frozen.

Also, Paul Reiser came to our table and Paul Reiser was one of the guys I most wanted to meet, but I was peeing. I missed Paul Reiser.

But then somehow after the show, you know, people were getting to their golf carts and whatever, and I’m talking to Leslie Odom Jr. like we’ve known each other forever and I’m talking to Regé-Jean Page like we go to the same kebab shop or something. It’s just very strange, the whole construct. But I do have to try to remember to enjoy it while it happens because you know, it’s not something that’s gonna necessarily happen ever again.

You never know. The world is full of surprises. I do have a quick random question to ask you about, which is how you ended up voicing Seth Myers on Animaniacs.

So if I may paraphrase that great sage of our time, Andrew Dice Clay, [does Andrew Dice Clay impression] “He needed the money!” I think that was my actual last gig before we started writing Ted Lasso. I do not have much of a voice-over career. I’d like to, I have good agents, but I just can’t quite crack the code. And I’m not really an impressions guy, but I’ve known Seth since 1999. And I thought I could do his patterns at least a little bit.

I read the script, because this is my friend here, and I’m thinking, “Are they gonna be like a real dick to him or something? I don’t wanna cause a problem with Seth.” But, again, “He needed the money!” And it was all in good spirits, and Seth loves Animaniacs… And it has never come up in conversation [with Seth]. Maybe now you’ve forced that issue. We’ll see what happens.

How did the casting people know that you had a Seth Meyers in you?

Well, my agent knew my history with Boom Chicago, this group that I’ve been in with all these people, and she called up and she’s like, Hey, I know you’re not necessarily an impressions guy, but can you do Seth Meyers?” And I was like [low-key Seth Meyers impression] “I think I can.”

I’ll end by wishing you luck with the rest of Season 3 — how are you feeling about it right now?

I feel good, really. You know, I think we’re doing, I think we’re doing all right. I don’t know if we’re doing what people think is gonna happen or is not gonna happen. But I think we’re doing the show we’ve always done, and I’m happy about that.

Ted Lasso Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Apple TV+.

Ted Lasso: Brendan Hunt on Coach Beard’s Secrets and How Season 3 Might Not Be the End
Liz Shannon Miller

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