West Ham United is playing a starring role in the new season of hit Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso.
The sports comedy-drama charts the life and career of Lasso, an American college football coach who is hired to coach a fictional English football club, AFC Richmond, with the intention of it failing. Played by the show’s co-creator Jason Sudeikis, Lasso instead improbably inspires the team with his uniquely optimistic leadership.
After being relegated in season one, Richmond have won promotion back to the Premier League in season two, and season three of the award-winning show will see Lasso’s Greyhounds go head-to-head with a West Ham team managed by his former assistant Nate Shelley.
Viewers have seen Shelley, played by actor and comedian Nick Mohammed, promoted from the role of Richmond’s kit manager to assistant coach by Lasso, before the pair fall out and Shelley is appointed West Ham manager by owner Rupert Mannion, who left AFC Richmond to take the Hammers over at the end of season two.
Season three began with an episode showing Shelley and Lasso’s rivalry at the start of the new Premier League season and, with episode two released on Wednesday 22 March and the Irons and the Greyhounds set to square-off in upcoming episodes, Mohammed and his co-star Phil Dunster, who plays Richmond’s star striker Jamie Tartt, will appear on The One Show on BBC One at 7pm this evening.
Speaking ahead of the launch of season three, Mohammed described how his character had changed through seasons one and two and said Shelley should be viewed as both a victim and a villain.
“Nate absolutely starts off as this underdog character in season one, a lowly kit man, and Ted comes along in typically Ted style and empowers him and he eventually gets promoted to assistant coach at the end of season one,” he said. “It’s a real joyful moment for him, but things do then take a certain different turn at the end of season two.
“I knew where the character was heading from really quite early on, when we were filming season one back in 2019 and I remember Jason sitting me down and saying ‘Look, if we’re lucky enough to be picked up for seasons two and three, this is where we see this character going.
“Nate has joined West Ham, a rival team, fresh after leaving Ted and AFC Richmond. I feel Nate has quite a lot to prove, actually, as he has a fancy car and is at a fancier club, so he feels he has something to prove to himself and his worth to Rupert, and to prove he can be better than Ted and prove that he was right to leave.”
In light of the issues raised by the series, Ted Lasso cast members visited the White House this week to discuss mental healthcare with US President Joe Biden, and Mohammed explained how Shelley’s life experiences have shaped his actions.
“I feel like every villain has an origin story and Nate is no exception to that,” he continued. “While I can’t condone his behaviour in season two and as we go into season three, I feel that in order to play it realistically, I had to find a real truth to why he is behaving that way, and a lot of stems from the toxic relationship he has with his Dad and he was clearly bullied by some of the players when he first started out as a kit man at AFC Richmond, so he has his reasons. Anyone who is hating on Nate, he was written that way, but please go easy on me on social media!”
