‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 Just Put a Brilliant New Spin on a Beloved Season 3 Story

Despite the gap between Seasons 3 and 4, the love for Ted Lasso hasn’t died. Picking up three years later, Higgins joins Rebecca and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) to recruit Ted back across the pond to coach the newly formed AFC Richmond women’s team. While Keeley has big plans for the club, it’s up to Rebecca and Higgins to keep those dreams alive and the team profitable for long-term stability.

Jeremy Swift is no stranger to our screens. From the high society houses of Downton Abbey and Gosford Park to fantasy adventures like The 10th Kingdom and Mary Poppins Returns, the English character actor has been working well over three decades, picking up supporting spots on a fairly consistent basis. However, nothing could’ve prepared him for the sheer magnitude of Ted Lasso and the amount of love Higgins would garner.

Ahead of Season 4, Episode 4’s “Greyhounds’ Day Off,” Swift spoke with me about his return to Ted Lasso. He shared with me the impact the series has had on him professionally and personally. Swift also gave me insight into working with his co-stars Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, and Brett Goldstein. Although we’re almost halfway through the season, Swift revealed his favorite scenes so far and who he’d like to share more scenes with if Ted Lasso is renewed for Season 5.

Jeremy Swift Praises Kansas City Creatives Jason Sudeikis and Robert Altman

“There’s something about storytelling in Kansas City.”

Image via AppleTV

COLLIDER: Alright, Jeremy, it is just so good to be chatting with you about Ted Lasso once again. How are you feeling about it being back?

JEREMY SWIFT: Very excited. Watching the first four episodes, I’m quite overwhelmed about how good it is and that I’m in it. I watch it and just think, “Oh, this is great.” And then I pop up. I sort of forgot that I’m in it because I hadn’t really watched it very much for about three years. I watched it when it dropped, and there are two or three episodes that I watched more than once, but I don’t like to watch things multiple times because I start to see, “Does that work or whatever?” Actually, you don’t with this show. With this show, you can watch multiple times because there are layers within it. Interestingly enough, I was thinking about this the other day because I worked with Robert Altman, who’s also from Kansas City. His movies can bear multiple watches because there are scenes that don’t impact you the first time. I think that’s the same with Ted Lasso. And Jason [Sudeikis] being from the same city, I wonder what that’s about. [Laughs] There’s something about storytelling in Kansas City, I don’t know.

There must be something there. I’m somebody who has gone back and watched Ted Lasso from the beginning before. Especially when you know where the story is going, it’s so cool to pick up on the little hints along the way of where things are going, and it is just so great.

SWIFT: Yes, little breadcrumbs.

You get the call that Season 4 is happening. Who from the cast did you reach out to first when you got the news?

SWIFT: We have a WhatsApp group, so we just celebrated on that. I can’t remember who came back on it first. It’s usually sort of Brett [Goldstein] and Brendan Hunt. They’re usually very quick at all those kinds of things. But yeah, it was very exciting. I’d sort of seen it coming because there were hints within the script, and I thought it might seem possible. Also, there is literally, just factually, a contract sell-by date, as it were, which, if it isn’t redone by certain days, then we’re out of contract. So, I thought, “It’s coming up soon.” But also, the scenes at the end of the last episode of Season 3, giving hints about the women’s team. It just seemed like it seemed possible, but not guaranteed.

In that in-between time from Season 3 to now, you were in Goodbye June. What was it like having Kate Winslet as a director? Did you learn anything from her or that set that you brought with you to this new season of Ted Lasso?

SWIFT: I wouldn’t say I learned anything that I brought, but it was a very unique experience. I had a scene with four standout actors. I don’t know whether you saw it, but I had to give them the news of their mother’s terminal cancer. They’re so good, they’re just so good. I had to be a seasoned doctor used to giving you [that news], they were so truthfully emotional. Oh man, I’m recalling it. That I had to be, whoa, really tell myself to really be in the zone and not get caught up in it. And Kate Winslet, just a standout, great person. Not starry, just like a mate. I got the call when I was driving the car, and my agent said Kate Winslet wants to give you a call to be in her new film. I was like, “OK, tell her to give me a ring.” She was a huge Ted Lasso fan.

SWIFT: She was really so nice, and she’s a great director. She had a great women’s team: DP, camera team, and first AD. She gave great notes. Really tough for her. I just don’t know how you play a leading part and direct, but she managed it with aplomb. I mean, she’s been on sets for a long time, I guess, but still, I don’t know how you work those two parts of your brain.

We’re even seeing so much of the Ted Lasso cast do that, too, of being writers and showrunners and also starring in it, too. I feel like there’s just so much you’re holding all at once.

SWIFT: Absolutely. I mean, Jason, man, I think he’s got used to it from his SNL days. He would write till four o’clock in the morning and then be on set at 8:30. I was like, “Wow, this guy has got some energy.” It’s just incredible. Hats off to all those people. I think a lot of people have other talents quite often as actors as well. Most people I know can do something else like write or sing or whatever.

How Have Jeremy Swift and Hannah Waddingham Evolved As Scene Partners?

“It’s just got warmer and more fun.”

Image via Apple TV

Season 4 picks up three years from the end where we last saw AFC Richmond. How do you think Leslie has grown in that time since we’ve seen him? Did you do any type of character work to fill in the gaps for what the audience might not even see?

SWIFT: I did a little backstory from just from the first script because I got the first script quite late. And I thought, “Oh, it is three years. Yeah, it makes sense.” I just thought that he’d been working with this women’s team for some time. I think Higgins is a little bit of a worrier sometimes, which I am, too. I think the worrying gets you into the zone because you sort of think you have to have exactitude about how you proceed with things. I think they’ve been doing that. They’ve been building up how to get this women’s team out there and get a crowd to come and see them and support them. I think he’s just grown as a credible operator in the brass, as Jason calls them. He’s still got a few funny sounds that he makes. I think those aren’t gonna go away in a hurry.

We’d be concerned if those went away.

SWIFT: [Laughs] Absolutely.

I think an underrated duo in Ted Lasso has to be between Higgins and Rebecca. So from your perspective, how do you think their relationship has evolved? How has your working relationship evolved with Hannah [Waddingham]?

SWIFT: I think Hannah and I hit it off and worked together easily from the get-go. We’ve both worked a lot for a long time. I want to say it hasn’t developed. It’s just got warmer and more fun. What I love is that there are still slightly catty exchanges amongst all the the working harmony that you have and the fun. Hopefully, you see the same people, and you see them enriched as the seasons have gone on.

Jeremy Swift Reflects on Working With New and Returning ‘Ted Lasso’ Cast

“This show is great at mismatching people and just seeing what happens.”

Even though we have so many familiar faces back, we are getting a lot of new faces this season with the women’s team. Although Higgins stays on the admin side of stuff, is there a player that you think that he could bond with at some point or even the new coach, Coach Chilton (Tanya Reynolds)?

SWIFT: That doesn’t really happen this season. It’s been a little bit odd in that way that we haven’t, because the male characters can’t really go into the locker room, the women’s locker room, in the way that they could in previous seasons. So I haven’t had an awful lot of interaction with them. But I don’t know. This show is great at mismatching people and just seeing what happens. I had a scene with Jamie Tartt, and every time we throw a couple of characters that aren’t used to being with each other, it creates a new dynamic, which is just really exciting. So I’d love to see if the writers come along with that. I’d love to have some scenes with Tanya [Reynolds], who plays Alice Chilton. She’s brilliant and very truthful and funny in an unusual way. So let’s see what happens.

How does Higgins feel being roped into tracking Roy’s dates between Roy and Keeley in Season 4, Episode 4? Wrong place, wrong time, and he gets to be the middle man of this.

SWIFT: Yeah, you can tell it was something completely unexpected at that moment. I loved doing that scene; it was such a hoot. I don’t think that’s really followed through particularly. It was huge audacity, of course, for Roy to rope him in. A man who’s got quite enough going on in his own family.

Now is Higgins rooting for Roy and Keeley’s reconciliation, or is he just trying to stay back?

SWIFT: Oh, I don’t think he feels it’s any of his business at all. There aren’t any lines or scenes that pertain to that in particular.

What Is Jeremy Swift’s Favorite ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 So Far?

“It sidesteps that and becomes something else.”

Image via Apple TV

Looking at Season 4 up until this point, do you have a particular favorite scene of Higgins?

SWIFT: I think it has to be going to the Negro Baseball Museum. I really relish that, and I loved going there as well. I read the script and saw that Higgins doesn’t go to the American Jazz Museum; I went there myself on a day off before I shot that. Then, it turned out to be in my own personal green room for two days, so that was just a joy. I just loved doing those scenes there. The actor I worked with, Milan Carter, was just such a beautiful actor.

SWIFT: For me, the show’s strongest power is to surprise people. You think that he’s going to have another pilgrimage, as he did in the “Sunflowers” episode in Season 3. But it sidesteps that and becomes something else. It becomes a sort of, as well as being enlightening, it’s a lesson for Higgins about going forward with the women’s team. It’s just stunning writing.

For you, how have you seen yourself evolve as an actor from when you started Ted Lasso to now?

SWIFT: I had been working for about 38 years before that because I’m ancient. How have I evolved? I’m more confident, I think, generally speaking. Because of the profile it’s given me, I can go onto sets and people trust that I can deliver. There’s not a kind of, “Oh, I don’t really know if this works. Can you do this?” I’m allowed to try things because the show has that about it, of people just opening up to new directions. Because Jason can do that with the improvisatory background to his career. So I’ve got to do some very fun stuff as a result of that.

If you had the opportunity to give yourself any type of advice from starting this journey to now, what would you tell yourself?

SWIFT: Trust the process. To a certain extent, I’ve always enjoyed the actual process of being on sets and working in scenes really more than the end result. The end result is always a surprise. I’m not in control of that. As long as I can nail what I’m doing, that’s the important thing for me. I think more and more, if I don’t think something’s right, I’m just a bit braver in saying this doesn’t quite add up because of A, B and C. As long as I have a cogent argument, people will buy it more.

New episodes of Ted Lasso Season 4 premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV.

Ted Lasso

Release Date

August 14, 2020

Network

Apple TV

Directors

Declan Lowney, MJ Delaney, Erica Dunton, Matt Lipsey