‘Ted Lasso’ Cast Hits The Picket Line In Support Of Writers’ Strike

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Imagine you’ve been given a role in a pilot: The exciting news appears in the trades, you film the episode and take the cast publicity photos. Then your show is picked up! But there’s a caveat: Your role is being re-shot with a new actor. Devastating! Cue sad trombone sound effect. That’s why I like these kinds of stories better: The background actors, guest stars and recurring actors who eventually graduate to series regular status thanks to sheer persistence and talent. That’s the case this season for “Ted Lasso” standout James Lance, who plays Trent Crimm — formerly of The Independent, now just independent — on the show.

It’s safe to say that today’s picket line at Warner Bros in Burbank drew a little more attention than some other days. That’s because newly unionized strippers from North Hollywood turned out to support striking WGA writers — and they brought a pole along.

David Benedict Having the audacity to harness stabs and slashes of Prokofiev’s celebrated ballet score for “Romeo and Juliet” for a production of Shakespeare’s play suggests remarkable confidence on the part of white-hot director Rebecca Frecknall. It’s not misplaced. Her startlingly visceral production, with a cast led by Toheeb Jimoh of “Ted Lasso,” is not only lit up by the power of bodies leaping in space and dramatically alert even when in repose; it’s also alive to the detailed drama of Shakespeare’s language. The intensity she engenders in her actors is sometimes ramped-up too highly and everything boils over, but at its finest, the fiercely articulate passion is electrifying. The fact that the rulebook is being rewritten is made plain from the get-go. The famous opening address about “two houses alike in dignity” is not spoken: The text is lit up on the wall covering the entire front of the stage. Beneath Gareth Fry’s low growl of a soundscape, the company gathers one by one to claw against it before sending it crashing to the ground. But this is not just a shock tactic. Frecknall is illuminating the line about “taking the wall of any man” and using physical energy to punch into a vigorously staged fight between the warring Montagues and Capulets.

On their latest shows, Brett Goldstein and Theo James have created characters who unpeel deeper truths beyond their hunky appearances. Goldstein, who’s won two Emmys for portraying soccer player and coach Roy Kent on “Ted Lasso,” returned for the Apple TV+ comedy’s third season. (He’s also a co-creator and writer on “Shrinking,” about a therapist played by Jason Segel.) James joined the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” set in Italy and from creator Mike White, as a chiseled, privileged vacationer. THEO JAMES: How did you end up writing for “Ted Lasso”? BRETT GOLDSTEIN: I’d done a pilot for Bill Lawrence. The pilot didn’t get picked up, but we stayed in touch, and he knew I was a writer as well as an actor. When people ask me for advice, I’m always like, there’s no magic phone call. It doesn’t happen. But I did get a magic phone call here, from Bill, out of the blue, saying, “I think you’d be good for this football show.”

The head of the country’s largest labor union joined striking Writers Guild film and television writers at a rally on Monday outside the New York City offices of streaming giant Amazon and said the writers’ cause has the support of workers from across unionized labor. 

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Actor Alfredo Castro (The Club, No, From Afar) is in the middle of what could be described as a mid-career boom, but he doesn’t think it’ll bring him many plaudits in his native country.

Whitney Friedlander Whether it’s a collision in an office elevator or a case of mistaken identities, fans of romantic comedies have a love-hate relationship with meet-cutes: The central couple must meet somehow and, since this is a love story, preferably they should do so in a cute way. But how many more white shirts must be killed in the name of clumsy-cute trip-and-falls while holding cups of coffee or orange juice?  For serialized romances, the challenge is even greater. Directors and writers must create interesting run-ins for characters to help sustain interest for longer than it takes for audiences to eat a bucket of popcorn.  “I feel like the bar now is, if you are expected to figure out a meet-cute, it has to be your new slightly subversive never-before-seen version of it,” says director Jay Karas. “I don’t think it’s a trope that we can totally get away from, because people have to meet somehow, and it’s just about how do you modernize it.” 

A day of picketing the set of the Starz/Lionsgate series BMF in Atlanta turned dangerous for WGA writers Brian Egeston and Gabriel Alejandro Garza. Egeston claimed in a series of tweets Thursday afternoon, accompanied by photos, that BMF line producer Ian Woolf, driving an SUV, pointed the vehicle at Egeston “as though it were a weapon and slammed the breaks within six feet of writers.”

The day after New York-based pickets were canceled for the week because of smoke, the gathering at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles was a bit smaller on Thursday, with less than 50 people gathering in support of the WGA strike.

The day that SAG-AFTRA began its talks with Hollywood studios over its own film and TV contract with a strike authorization in hand, picketing Writers Guild members on Wednesday hit up Disney and Warner Bros in Burbank.

Apple may have entered the virtual reality arena earlier today with the unveiling of a new platform and headset, launched with the help of Disney boss Bob Iger, but in the real world it spent the day being targeted by writers.

WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser issued a clarion call to members and supporters earlier today.

Nick Mohammed still can’t believe how lucky he was to have scored the role of Nate Shelley in Apple’s multi-Emmy Award-winning series Ted Lasso—but it almost didn’t happen. Mohammed had set his sights on a different role which he didn’t land but at the time he didn’t realize it didn’t work out for a reason.

It was Pride and Drag Queen picket day in Los Angeles, where around 300 people hit up Warner Bros. Discovery to highlight their issues as the strike marches into its second month.

As one of Reality TV’s royal family crossed the line, striking film and television writers joined forces on Wednesday in New York City with another group of culture workers involved in a pay dispute: musicians. 

took its final bow on Wednesday, as the series finale found Jason Sudeikis' titular coach on a plane back home to Kansas, and the rest of its main characters on new journeys of their own.But is this the end of the road for the AFC Richmond Greyhounds? Sudeikis and the show's cast and creators have long insisted that the show was always planned as a three-season run. But that was before they dominated the Emmys' comedy categories two years in a row and became one of the most beloved streaming series.Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent on the Apple TV+ soccer comedy in addition to writing on the show, told the  last summer that, as far as the writers are concerned, the third season would be the show's last.«We are writing it like that.

ended its acclaimed three-season run on Wednesday with Jason Sudeikis' titular coach returning home to Kansas, though it's safe to say that none of the show's beloved characters ended up in the same place they were when the series began.None more so, perhaps, than Jamie Tartt, played by Phil Dunster, whose emotional evolution over the course of the Emmy-winning comedy has made him a fan favorite. The star striker of AFC Richmond, Jamie was a prototypical diva in season 1, though Ted's kind and gentle coaching style began to break him down.

Note: This story contains spoilers from the Season 3 finale of “Ted Lasso.”Yeah, this might be all that we get. This might just well be it.It’s almost like the “Ted Lasso” theme song anticipated that the Season 3 finale would close nearly all major storylines of the Apple TV+ series as the show’s future remains unclear.Season 3, Episode 12, titled “So Long, Farewell,” debuted Wednesday and wrapped up many of the loose ends left behind in previous episodes.

wrapped up its acclaimed three-season run on Wednesday, as the Apple TV+ comedy took its final bow as AFC Richmond came so close to taking home the Premiere League Title, winding up second behind Manchester United in an appropriately humbling and hopeful conclusion to an honest and meaningful series.It was a bittersweet episode, filled with the heartfelt speeches and emotional character development that fans have come to know and love from the two-time Emmy winner for Outstanding Comedy Series.After the final game, it came time for the eponymous Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) to bid farewell to the team and town he's come to love and return home to his son in the US. However, despite his departure, fans quickly got a chance to see the next stage in the lives of all the other beloved characters.Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) becomes the new manager of AFC Richmond, while Coach Beard (‎Brendan Hunt) stays behind to marry his ladylove Jane, and remain a part of the coaching staff.

The writers strike has entered its fifth week and is about to enter its second month and shows no sign of abating.