“#Nick Mohammed and Brendan Hunt Talk Ted Lasso: “It’s Really Going to Resonate with People””
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We have the pleasure to bring you some more dialogue from the Ted Lasso press tour, which is all leading up to the premiere on August 14 on Apple TV .</p>
Brendan Hunt originated the character of Coach Beard alongside Jason Sudeikis in the Ted Lasso videos for the NFL and the Premier League. Coach Beard is stoic but always down for a trip to the pub. Hunt also writes for the show.
Nick Mohammed stars as the team waterboy turned coach, Nate, a timid, but talented, young man, who begins to thrive once Ted arrives at Richmond. Mohammed also stars in a show he created, Intelligence, over on Peacock.
Allow the following conversation to help persuade you to tune into Ted Lasso!
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![Nick Mohammed and Brendan Hunt on Ted Lasso Season 1 Episode 3]()
Brendan, I understand you’re quite the Arsenal fan, really into soccer, and have done so much with soccer as an American. So I’m wondering, what’s it like picking up coach Beard again? And how are you two alike?
Brendan: Coach Beard and I are pretty different. He has such an economy of vocabulary, and I am a bit of a blathering, nonstop talker to the point where I have estranged most of my friends, but that’s how it goes. But, we also try to pull a little bit out of me into Beard.
I lived in Amsterdam for a few years, and me and my friends there, including Jason Neil, we got up to mischief. And so drawing from that, we think Beard has a real dark side and a real dark history that Ted has saved him from that we’re only just starting to explore. So we’ll see how that goes.
What do you like most about playing coach Beard?
Brendan: You know, Beard sort of ends up coming off as a bit of a tough guy, which is just not what I am like at all. I remember I took a karate class when I was around seven, and my sister, who’s a year and a half younger than me, got further than I did.
I am not manly, but Beard kind of seems that way. It’s kind of fun to pretend to be intimidating when I know how much I am not.
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![Nate Joins Ted On the Pitch - Ted Lasso Season 1 Episode 2]()
Nick, you have quite the knack for playing a character who’s rather timid but is packing a bunch of hidden talent. What can you tell me about getting involved with Ted Lasso and about your character?
Nick: I very much auditioned for the part. Obviously, I was a fan of Jason’s. I’d seen the original Ted Lasso sketches, as well, of Jason and Brendan. So when I read that there was going to be a sitcom version of Ted Lasso, I was, obviously, automatically intrigued, and I thought the scripts were great.
I think I’m right in saying that I originally auditioned for Higgins, and then I came back for Nathan. I think I was shooting another show at the time. So I had to do the tape, like in my dressing room of another show, and it was really rushed. And I remember thinking I’ve had to rush it and maybe blow my chances.
So I was delighted that it worked out. Nathan is a bit of a General Dogsbody, at least in the first instance. But he’s very knowledgeable. He just doesn’t really have the confidence or the platform to show how knowledgeable he really is.
But when Ted comes over, he instills some kind of level of confidence in Nathan that builds as the season progresses. It was nice to have a character that goes on a bit of a journey, and by the end, he’s very much part of Ted’s support network, and Ted is asking him for advice. And so it felt nicely balanced in that respect.
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![Nate Has an Idea - Ted Lasso Season 1 Episode 3]()
What is your favorite part of playing those characters that seem so unconfident at first? Because I think you do that as well in your show Intelligence. So it seems like that’s kind of your bally wick. Why is that?
Nick: It’s probably cause it’s maybe a bit of who I am. I guess, in intelligence, my character is quite happy, go lucky, and sort of almost quite bulletproof in that respect. Whereas I think with Nathan, he feels genuinely quite downtrodden, and he’s bullied a little bit in the workplace, and it definitely affects him.
But I don’t know. I guess I’m quite short as well, so I’ve never really had that leading man or alpha presence in the room. Whether in real life or on-screen. I think I naturally feel an affinity to some of those parts, and it’s quite nice because, especially with Nathan, he goes on that journey.
So he starts off somewhere, but I knew there was somewhere to go, like Brendan. Jason had let me know the plan for how the series unfolds, even though I hadn’t seen the later episodes; the scripts of those were still being finished off. I had tempered the performance a bit. I love playing parts like that. It feels right.
So something that I find fascinating is how many of you on the show are not only actors, but writers, as well.
What kind of influence does that have on the creative process behind the scenes? What kind of discussions do you all have and have they been open and susceptible to do your input on your characters?
Brendan: Having been in the actual writer’s room, I’ve certainly been able to get my two cents in there and help guide that process. And Brett [Goldstein], who plays Roy Kent, is also one of the actual staff writers, and we thought the show was all right.
[chuckling] But then every time we come to set, there’s Nick with his, ‘I’m a writer too’ rewrites and new monologues for Nate, and here’s a love scene between Beard and Nate, and it’s like, ‘dude, come on, we tried, give us a chance.’
Yes, everything he brought to the table was clearly better than the drivel that we had come up with, but we just had to give it a shot. Come on.
Nick: I agree with that wholeheartedly.
<strong>What's it like doing an American sitcom in the UK? </strong></p>
Nick: It’s quite strange actually because, obviously, a lot of my background is doing UK sitcoms in the UK.
Strange, but then because the premise of the show is about an American being the fish out of water and the fact that it was an Apple show and we knew that it was going to have that transatlantic appeal on both sides of the Atlantic, you quickly fall into it to a rhythm.
I mean, the biggest difference I felt was just the fact that UK sitcoms are usually six episodes, and over in the States, it’s more like 10 or 13 episodes. You just get that luxury of spending more time with the character. Particularly with Nathan, my point of view was that because I knew there was a journey, you could pace that journey a little bit.
You just become more ingrained into the whole fabric of the show then. And just by the fact that you’re spending more time together as well. You just grow a lot more comfortable in each of the sort of space. I mean, I think you just improve, as well. Your acting gets better.
Everyone picks up on turn a lot quicker, just because you’ve got the luxury of a little bit more time. Obviously, you have to film more episodes, but still, it felt really fun to be doing ten episodes as opposed to six, which is what I’m more used to over here.
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![Brendan Hunt Bless This Mess]()
