Roy "fucking" Kent

Ted Lasso returns for Season 4!!

I’ve wanted to say Roy ‘fucking’ Kent for so long. So many ‘fucks’ in Ted Lasso but in that show, it’s hard to think of it as swearing. It’s just so funny. And I’ve learned from a Netflix show called Skip Intro where the podcaster Krista Smith (a brilliant interviewer by the way) interviews Brett Goldstein, that ‘fuck’ and another word that is harder for me to use, are everyday words in the UK. A bit like ‘darn’ or ‘blasted’.

Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikus in Ted Lasso

And Ted Lasso is returning for Season 4 in August. I’ve been telling everyone of its return. And been surprised at how many of my friends have not seen the show. They thought it was about futbol. I said ‘well, yes, that’s true on the surface but the real theme…, the aboutness, is actually the most wonderful anything you will ever see on the Nature of Kindness.’ Ask anyone.

As soon as I heard there was to be Season 4, I rewatched Seasons 1-3. I love the series just as much as the first time around if not better. It is brilliant. Take for example the scene in Season One where Ted and Rebecca’s ex, Rupert, are playing darts. No spoilers here. Go watch, it’s the second or third episode.

Awhile ago, my friends in Arizona recommended I watch “Shrinking” with Harrison Ford playing a shrink who has Parkinson’s. And there was Roy “fucking” Kent—a very sad guy in this show. I couldn’t shake the image of him as one of Richmond’s coaches, promoted to Head Coach at the end of Season Three. Finally a couple of weeks ago, I did some research on the actor, Brett Goldstein, who it turns out is also one of the writers, producers, and if he hasn’t directed an episode of something yet, I’m sure he is headed in that direction. He is a self-admitted workaholic and not at all ashamed of it!!!!

Photo from Wikipedia. In three seasons of Ted Lasso and three seasons of Shrinking, I have never seen him smile like this. It’s a great smile. I hope to see it more.

And since I first started writing this particular Substack, he can now been seen with JLo in a RomCom called Office Romance. He wrote the script with Joe Kelly, also a writer on Ted Lasso, a couple of years ago with JLo in mind as he, Goldstein, considers her to be ‘the Queen of romcoms.’ The two writers sent it to her not expecting much. She read it, says she loved it, but had another project going. According to Brett’s interview on Skip Intro, she then got back to him a year later and said, basically, let’s go for it.

I have to admit, I had to really adjust my brain from Roy “fucking” Kent to Louis in Shrinking and now he is the romantic lead in Office Romance. In my opinion, he pulls it off but I will have to watch the movie again. It isn’t one of my favorite movies I’ve watched recently (but then I’ve been watching Danny Kaye, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland—pretty high competition). The best thing I’ve seen him in lately is my new find Skip Intro*. Krista Smith is an excellent interviewer asking intelligent questions and getting interesting and thoughtful answers in return. I’ve watched interviews of JLo; Kate Winslet in which she talked of her first directing gig of Goodbye June, a movie written by her son, Joe Anders; Laura Dern—as much fun to listen to as to watch her act; Billy Crudup—Morning Show, Jay Kelly, Almost Famous; George Clooney talking about the ways he was like Jay Kelly and ways he definitely is not. He mentioned that he had seventeen auditions and made seventeen pilots that flopped before ER. You know that Chinese saying….fall down seven times, get up eight? How about fall down seventeen times, get up eighteen and, boom, the rest is history. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Not even George Clooney.

I think Jay Kelly may have been made for other actors. It seems to me to be an actors movie. I rewatched it as Krista Smith interviewed the main actors and all agreed it was a deep, amazing movie. Not that for me. Some of the themes I missed the first time around came through clearer this second time. So I will say that I appreciated it and I think George Clooney, Adam Sandler-showing us his acting chopes, the great Billy Crudup, and especially Laura Dern were excellent. But, as I’ve been saying for the past couple of substacks, I’m in escape mode and not in the mood for Deep Thinking.

*You can find Skip Intro on Netflix and, because it is a Podcast, it is also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to Podcasts.

A bientôt,

Sara