And now I have the privilege of talking leadership and life on location with Brendan Hunt, a leading producer, writer and actor otherwise known as Coach Beard on the outrageously popular series Ted Lasso.

So let's head out on location.

Well, thanks for being with us on Business Life, 360 and after hours.

Brendan Hunt: Thank you for having me.

Kristi K: So let's talk about you.

Pay some homage to the young Brendan Hunt.

Tell us about you as a child.

Brendan Hunt: Yeah, this is all super hilarious.

My parents got divorced when I was two, and then my mom tried to raise me and my sister by herself and that wasn't very easy.

And.

And then, um, change of the head in the school.

Um, a very depressing time in Little League, which I thought a little league was supposed to be depressing because Charlie Brown depicted it that way.

So I thought that meant I was doing it right.

And then, you know, in the seventh grade or so, there was an announcement on the on the pay that, you know, that it was a 7 to 12 school and they're doing the king.

And I determined that would be a lot of opportunities for the seventh and eighth graders because I need so many kids in the king and I and good old Landry Robins and next to me said we're auditioning.

Okay.

Thanks, Andre and yes, from thence, I very much enjoyed, you know, the bug.

Kristi K: Little did you know that was like one of those significant emotional events that that moment in time, that was like a peak moment for you to get on that trajectory.

Yeah.

And luckily we have you now, So there you go.

Brendan Hunt: Yeah.

Despite being not particularly good in that show, I mean, you know, school plays, I think we did two performances and I'm supposed to sing Whistle a happy tune and no one ever knows, I'm afraid, but I whiffed on the lyrics.

So a very clear I was afraid.

So the whole idea of the song was just completely, completely blitzkrieg by me.

But but still, I thought maybe I'd get better later.

Kristi K: Yeah.

And you did look at, you know.

So did you imagine a career in comedy, like as you started going through sort of after high school?

Did you ever think, okay, this is definitely what I want to be doing or not?

Brendan Hunt: So much?

Kinda.

I mean, growing up in Chicago, you had the luxury of being very close to a lot of artistic institutions, and one of them is Second City and I saw my first Second City show in eighth grade.

And it, you know, seeing improv for the first time just, you know, blew my lid and then I saw a really good Shakespeare at that time too.

And so I just just knew I always wanted to be performing and but the thing about watching comedy shows is comedy shows tell you like, oh, you can write, too.

You know, when you when you watch a play, it's like the playwright is somehow the separate from the equation in a way as a viewer.

But when you're watching a sketch show, it's always very clear, like these people not only are saying this, but they wrote this, they made this.

This didn't exist before and was never a conscious recognition of that.

But it was definitely a, you know, a molecular one, I guess.

Kristi K: And then when you started writing and co-creating Ted Lasso, how did that how did that process go when you were sitting in the room?

You're sitting there with Jason Sudeikis and you are you just do you write together?

Do you write separately and bring it together?

How does that process flow?

Brendan Hunt: So it goes back to the original ad campaign in 2013, which was me and Jason and Joe Kelley.

And, you know, it's been the three of us on the show ever since.

And we literally all we had was a premise.

And so we just sat around Jason's pool and were like, okay, well, this coach goes in and then what happens?

Oh, this.

Yeah, this.

We didn't even write dialog, which kind of wrote down the ideas.

And then we went out there and we just shot the scenarios out the sheet of paper, much to the chagrin of this highly paid, very professional British crew who do not do things off the cuff in that way, and they were all crapping themselves.

And fast forward to when it becomes a TV show.

I mean, then we have a full writing staff.

So it's the, you know, the three of us and eight other people.

And you know, like Jason knows what he wants to have happen, but also he believes in sharing the ball.

And he's got to he's got a point guard mentality for a third grader.

So so he doesn't want to hear from everyone, you know, what they what they think can happen.

And that's the other thing about that comes back to sketch and improv is the best idea always wins.

Like it doesn't really matter who who had it.

And so yeah, we put a high premium on making sure everyone, you know, speaks up and says their piece.

And as you were writing, did you think, okay, these leadership lessons we definitely want to get across to people or was it sort of unintentional yet intentional based on the timing, how things kind of worked out and you kind of went with that as in like, you know, certain leadership lessons were.

Brendan Hunt: Unintentional, intentional.

I mean, you know, you put a thing out there and like how people are going to react to it or what they're going to run with on it is not something you can control.

We definitely wanted to make a good coach and a coach who cared about people.

And, you know, there was there were not great examples of American leadership at the time that we were writing the show.

And part of it was reminding people we can care about the people we're working with and just want the best for everyone as opposed to one of the best for yourself, which was the worst leadership quality that was out there.

Kristi K: Specific.

Okay, Some of the message points like loneliness and mental health and those issues.

Certainly after the pandemic, they really hit close to home with so many of us who were watching Ted Lasso One thing I wanted to remark on with you and leadership as it ties to Coach Beard is how well you portrayed sort of that quiet leader.

It's like, you know, as a as a viewer that you did your homework, you did your research, you knew the answers, but you didn't always have to be the first one in the room speaking.

And that to me is something that so many of us in the business world maybe we appreciate, but aren't always that way.

So is that kind of how you are as a person?

Brendan Hunt: Oh, no, I'm a I'm a blabbermouth, you know, in terms of like words per day, I'm way opposite Coach Beard.

But but you know, it's another improv and sketch, you know, Maxim that he represents, which is, you know, there's a, there's a school of thought that you should be watching the scene that your partners are in, in the show and ask yourself, what does this scene need?

And it may or may not need you to enter that scene, but that's Beard's whole thing is like, what does this life of ours need?

It does not need talking.

Ted's got that part to handle.

It does need someone to learn the rules of soccer on a ten hour flight as quickly as possible.

So, yeah, he he just waits to see what is happening before he he acts and tries to fill in the gaps.

And yeah, I think that's an essential, essential part of a team.

Kristi K: So when you are in business life360 and after hours we do something called Rapid Fire.

Okay?

And our viewers and listeners get to know you a little bit better.

Who makes you laugh the most in your life?

Brendan Hunt: In my whole life.

Gosh, it may well be Joe Kelly.

No, you know, it is is my son Sean.

He's he's two and he's not really got the grasp of the vocabulary yet.

But.

But oh, man, he's he's so funny every day.

Kristi K: I love it.

Who is your favorite musical artists of all time?

Brendan Hunt: The Beatles.

Kristi K: One word to describe you as a dad.

Brendan Hunt: Playing the long game.

Kristi K: Brendan Hunt, thank you so much for joining us.

This is my day of business after hours.

It's been a lot of fun.

Thank you.

Thank you.