‘Ted Lasso’: Why Jason Sudeikis Refused to Be Like ‘The Office’

Ted Lasso and The Office have more in common than you might think. Both are based on pre-existing characters, Ted Lasso from NBC Sports’ Premier League ads and the American Office from the British show. Both have an NBC connection with Lasso coming from NBC Sports and The Office airing on NBC. Ted Lasso co-creator and actor Jason Sudeikis said he’d never want his character to be like The Office manager David Brent (Ricky Gervais) or Michael Scott (Steve Carell) though. 

Sudeikis was a guest on Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio podcast on Dec. 17 with his co-creator and co-star Brendan Hunt. Sudeikis explained why he didn’t want to play another cynical authority figure on Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso evolved into a kind hero

By the time Ted Lasso premiered on Apple TV+, Ted was a force of good. When Sudeikis first created the character to advertise NBC’s airing of Premier League games, Ted was a brash American. Sudeikis said he found Ted’s kindness over the course of the ad campaign in 2013-2014.

“We didn’t know that we were doing it, especially the very first one, that it was about [kindness],” Sudeikis said on StarTalk. “I would say the first commercial isn’t about kindness. It wasn’t until the second one that really unlocked Ted’s optimism and hopefulness and his curiosity and what not. Then by the time a couple years after that when we started talking about the TV show, we were really as a country being inundated with a lot of negativity. Little did we know the prime example of ignorance and arrogance hadn’t quite come down the escalator in Trump Plaza yet. 

Jason Sudeikis sensed there was a market for ‘Ted Lasso’

Between 2016 and 2020, Sudeikis, Hunt and Joe Kelly teamed up with producer Bill Lawrence. The quartet adapted Ted Lasso for television. Sudeikis cited the 2016 election as an influx of negativity. He also observed that abrasive characters like David Brent and Michael Scott had already been done. 

“There was a disturbance in the force,” Sudeikis said. “So we wanted to make a show that didn’t rely on sarcasm and cynicism. I know I personally didn’t want to play a character that would’ve felt derivative to David Brent or Michael Scott. All these great characters that were kicking butt on television.”

‘The Office’ managers Michael Scott and David Brent were on the nay list 

Ruling out characters like those on The Office, or Curb Your Enthusiasm, left only kindness for Ted Lasso. 

“It was really about what we didn’t want to do,” Sudeikis said. “It lent itself time and time again to kindness and to empathy. Words I don’t think we were necessarily aware of. Aware of, yes, but weren’t speaking about in the writers room. Or, even in my dining room at my house in Brooklyn, Joe, Brendan and I beat out the idea for this show.”