On The Scene: Apple TV+ Celebrates ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 2 Premiere [video]

Ted Lasso written, executive produced and starred by Jason Sudeikis returns for Season 2 and breaks the record for most Emmy nominations with 20 noms, just surpassing Glee’s 19. 

In addition to starring, Sudeikis serves as executive producer, alongside Bill Lawrence via his Doozer Productions, in association with Warner Bros. and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. Apple TV+ celebrated the success of the show with an exclusive sneak peek screening on the Pacific Design Center rooftop this past Thursday, July 15th. More than 100 fans lined up in bleachers to cheer on the cast.  Hannah Waddingham (“Rebecca”), Brendan Hunt (“Coach Beard” & Executive Producer), Jeremy Swift (“Higgins”), Juno Temple (“Keeley”), Brett Goldstein (“Roy” & Writer), Cristo Fernández (“Dani Rojas”), Moe Jeudy-Lamour (“Thierry Zoreaux”), Sam Richardson (Guest Star), Bill Lawrence (Executive Producer & Writer), Bill Wrubel (Executive Producer & Writer), Joe Kelly Executive Producer) and Marcus Mumford (Composer) were all in attendance. 

Additional appearances included Ke$ha, Nikki Glaser, Sophia Bush, Apple’s Tim Cook (CEO, Apple), Jamie Erlicht (Head of Worldwide Video, Apple) and Zack Van Amburg (Head of Worldwide Video, Apple) as well as a bevy of entertainment and sports stars.

Moe Jeudy-Lamour talked to The Knockturnal about the success of the show calling it “overwhelming.” He attributes playing FIFA with Jason Suedikis as a part of the training process when getting acclimated with the heavy soccer terminology. 

The show’s plot surrounds Coach Ted Lasso’s move from coaching an American football team to being recruited to coach soccer (the UK’s “futbol”) in London while his boss, Rebecca, is secretly rooting for him to fail. Ted’s character has not only resonated with sports fans around the world but also those who aren’t necessarily into sports like myself. Ted’s southern charm hooks viewers in from the very start and acts as superpower for Ted when getting himself out of compromising situations. Audiences become emotionally invested in Ted with his undeniable sense of familiarity. For myself especially, growing up in rural Virginia, it was very unlikely to see the archetype of my town’s former high school football coach or very own father on-screen. While we can all agree there is a need for more representation of different cultures and races on television, Ted Lasso approaches the white male in a refreshing way. He isn’t the misogynistic, racist, bigot villain exposed that we’ve seen time and time again in the past few years. He’s the protagonist with a key message of accepting your differences, remaining honest and humble and always finding forgiveness in your heart. This show brings a positive take surrounding differences since Ted is a stereotypical American who hardly knows a thing about Brits and  seemingly just wants to make a good impression. This message of hope and relentless optimism to do the right thing and to ultimately win is what we’ve needed in this post-Trump era and of course, during the global pandemic that still continues on. 

As the next season unfolds, viewers can expect to see the full cast return as well as the crowd favorite “Diamond Dogs” said Jeremy Swift. Swift also spoke about how difficult it was to not break character when filming those scenes in particular.

“It’s very very hard… The diamond dog scenes in particular is where everybody cracks. It’s in a very small room which seems to make it even worse.” 

The highly anticipated second season of “Ted Lasso” debuts on Friday, July 23, 2021, exclusively on Apple TV+. Doozer’s Jeff Ingold also serves as an executive producer with Liza Katzer as co-executive producer. The series was developed by Sudeikis, Lawrence, Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, and is based on the pre-existing format and characters from NBC Sports.