Though he’s currently promoting his other Apple TV+ shows, the second season of “Shrinking” and the premiere of his new series “Bad Monkey,” Bill Lawrence can’t seem to escape the phantom that is “Ted Lasso.” Having developed the show with Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly, many of the questions regarding the future of the popular sports dramedy fall to him. But in a recent interview with Collider, Lawrence says that despite an interest to do more, it’s really not up to him.
“Groupthink sometimes happens, even without talking to each other, and every actor, actress, writer, producer on that show — and [we didn’t get] together and decide this was the message — we all loved the experience,” Lawrence said. “As fans, we’d all kill if it was going again, but everybody would say the same thing, which is: whatever Jason feels like doing and whatever his decision is, we’re all down with it.”
Though Lawrence helped shape the first two seasons, he was largely absent from season three as he had shifted his attention to “Shrinking,” a show that shoots in his native Los Angeles, whereas “Ted Lasso” required his presence across the pond in London. While Lawrence doesn’t seem to mind the travel, he knows it was a lot for Sudeikis, who had to carry many more hats than he did.
“Not only is he the star, he’s the head writer, and he’s also the dude whose life just has to be completely overhauled and moved to a foreign country with young children,” said Lawrence to Collider. “It’s a big deal. So, as a fan, if someone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna happen again,’ I’ll go nuts. As a partner, I’m down for whatever he wants to do.”
Sudeikis has spoken on his own interest in returning to the series last year following its conclusion and seemed pretty definitive in his feelings.
“This story is done,” he said to Dana Carvey and David Spade on their “Fly on the Wall” podcast. “It sounds like such a political answer, but it’s the truth. We only conceived these three [seasons], then this thing became this big old thing.”
That being said, Sudeikis does see a world where there’s more work to be done in expanding on the series, even if it doesn’t mean new episodes for the original show.
“Whether it’s [a book], whether it’s doing podcasts about the episodes to offer those audio commentaries… just to talk through things and the themes,” Sudeikis said. “And also it would explain the show in a much more cerebral way than I ever would have been able to explain it to anybody. Yeah, there’s opportunities, I think, for spin-offs.”
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