Jason Sudeikis explains how Donald Trump inspired him to change Ted Lasso’s character
Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis has explained how Donald Trump’s rise to power made him alter the personality of the lead character.
Speaking to The Guardian ahead of the finale of the Apple TV+ show’s third season, Sudeikis explained how in his first comedy skits as Lasso he portrayed him as more “belligerent” than he later became. Of the change, the actor said:” It was the culture we were living in. I’m not terribly active online and it even affected me. Then you have Donald Trump coming down the escalator. I was like, ‘OK, this is silly,’ and then what he unlocked in people… I hated how people weren’t listening to one another.”
He continued: “Things became very binary and I don’t think that’s the way the world works. And, as a new parent – we had our son Otis in 2014 – it was like, ‘Boy, I don’t want to add to this.’ Yeah, I just didn’t want to portray it.”
In the same interview, Sudeikis said of the show’s uplifting message: “You know, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’. Well, how about, ‘Write the change you want to see in the world’? Part of the joy of getting to do this neat job I’ve got to do is the wish-fulfilment. Not just getting to play the characters, but also, what do you want to put out there into the world?”
Watch the trailer for the third season of Ted Lasso below.
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