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How Brett Goldstein Went from the Ted Lasso Writer's Room to Playing Roy Kent

Photo credit: AppleTV+
Photo credit: AppleTV+


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When Emmy nods were announced earlier this month, one nominee's statement was a bit more, well, colorful than the rest.

Brett Goldstein received one of Ted Lasso's 20 nominations for his performance as aging soccer star Roy Kent in the popular AppleTV+ series. Kent isn't exact known for a clean mouth, and apparently Goldstein isn't either. "Holy f***ing s***. What an incredible honor. Proper dream come true s***," he said in a statement shared by his team.

"Every part of this show has felt like magic to me. To have the privilege to work on it, to get to make something with this incredible team and now for us to be nominated as a team is just too lovely. Extra special thanks to Jason and Bill for inviting me to be part of this. What a thing... As a cynical English guy I’m struggling to deal with all this wonderfulness. I’m not crying, you’re crying. F*** off! You’re crying. You ****."

Photo credit: AppleTV+
Photo credit: AppleTV+

Perhaps some of Goldstein's shock stems from the fact that originally, he wasn't going to be on screen in the series; he was a behind-the-scenes member of the Ted Lasso writer's room—but one email changed everything.

"I was just writing on the show, and around about episode five, I started to think, 'I really understand Roy. I really get Roy. I think Roy is within me,'" Goldstein tells T&C.

"But I also knew no one was thinking of me for Roy, and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable by saying it in the room because we still had time to go, and it would have been really awkward if I had gone, 'I think I could be Roy,' and everybody be like, 'no.' Then we'd still have to see each other every day." So he waited until the end of the writing session, and made a self-tape of five of Roy's scenes.

"I sent an email the next day, and I said, 'Look, I think I could play Roy, but I appreciate no one's asking for this, so if this is awkward or uncomfortable, and it's shit, pretend you never got this email. I'll never ask you about it and we never need to talk about it again,'" he says.

"They saw it and couldn't be bothered to keep looking, so I got the part."

See Goldstein's Emmy-nominated performance in Ted Lasso on AppleTV+. Season two's premiere is out now.

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