‘Ted Lasso’ Co-Creators & Stars Tease Season 2 Exploring Mental Health Issues But Promise “We’ll Still Get Our Yuks In”

Matt Grobar
·4 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

On Tuesday, the creators and stars of Ted Lasso celebrated the Apple TV+ series’s 20 Emmy nominations, at the same time teasing its upcoming second season.

Co-creator, producer, writer and actor Brendan Hunt—who plays Ted Lasso’s (Jason Sudeikis) loyal assistant and friend, Coach Beard—said that Season 2 will be about “what’s happening internally for the characters,” more than any specific “external life events,” addressing the subject of mental health.

More from Deadline

“Mental health still has stigmas around it in this country, and even more so in England, and even more so in sports, so we take a little time to explore that, and where our characters are at with that,” he continued. “Now, I know that all sounds hilarious. But we’ll still get our yuks in.”

When co-creator Bill Lawrence hopped on the phone, he offered up a tease that was much more cryptic. “If I was to give a spoiler, I would say first season, besides being about Ted and the group, was about Rebecca,” he said. “The show started on a close-up of her looking at a painting—kind of this single shot of her, following her journey—and I would say that it would be a clue about who a lot of the second year is about, if we mimic that shot stuff.

“Something cool Jason really likes to do visually is tell you who the sneak protagonist or lead character is,” Lawrence added, “by where we start, and whose face we start on.”

First-time Emmy nominee Juno Temple, who plays Keeley Jones, said that the show will “continue to surprise people” in Season 2. Meanwhile, first-time Emmy nominee Hannah Waddingham offered up some specifics, as to the Season 2 arc of her AFC Richmond club owner, Rebecca Welton. “We find her in an improved place. She’s very much the head of the team, and for the first time ever, loving it. She loves her boys, and she is totally behind Ted, but the other side of that is her chewing up her phone on these dating apps and not having a f***ing clue what she’s doing,” the actress said. “I love the juxtaposition of that, that she is absolutely the figurehead of that team, but in every other way, when she’s just at home, she’s floundering around like a teenager.”

Hunt likewise offered up character-specific details, saying that Coach Beard is “still with Jane, except when he’s not, because it’s still complicated.”

Lawrence and Hunt confirmed that writing on Season 3 will kick off in the next month or so, the goal being to start shooting in January. “Once the show was clearly a hit, Apple—to their credit—was like, ‘Hey, let’s get you guys doing all this now!’ So, we’re a bit like Lucy with the assembly line of chocolates,” said Hunt. “It’s only just starting to get going, and we’ve got to hang on tight.”

Lawrence noted that every Ted Lasso character’s storyline was mapped out through Season 3, before production started on Season 1. He also seemed to hint that the show could end following its third go-round.

“This story [we’ve already mapped out], I know has a beginning, middle and an end, and will end the third year,” he said. “I think there’s other stories to tell about Ted Lasso and the gang, and we’ll see. I think either way, it’ll be important to Jason and all of us to try and go out on a high note.”

Created by Sudeikis, Hunt, Lawrence and Joe Kelly, Ted Lasso centers on a warmhearted U.S. football coach of the same name who heads to the UK to manage a London soccer team, despite his limited understanding and experience of the latter sport. Sudeikis also exec produces alongside Bill Lawrence via his Doozer Productions, in association with Warner Bros. and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. Doozer’s Jeff Ingold also serves as an exec producer, with Liza Katzer as co-executive producer.

Today, the show landed four nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (which went to Brett Goldstein, Jeremy Swift, Nick Mohammed and Hunt), two for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (which went to Waddingham and Temple), and a Lead Actor nom, recognizing Sudeikis. Additional citations came in the categories of Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program (Half-Hour), Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (three), Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series (two), Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music, Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation, and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (two).

The comedy returns for its second season on July 23, and was renewed for a third in October of last year.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.