When I say it out loud, I just can’t believe how lucky I’ve been, in these first few years of my career, to have some of the most incredible castmates. The messages that we were getting from the top down were very much, “Everybody here has to have their own space.” There just wasn’t any tolerance for anything else. Our executive producers are unbelievable, from Jane Featherstone to Naomi De Pear to Naomi Alderman, who wrote the book, as well. If the leader of the team is the person who’s affording the most space to people and who’s giving the power to other people, then everybody else just has to follow suit. Nobody else has license to behave that way, if Jason doesn’t. On Ted Lasso, it was impossible for anybody to take up too much space or to try to squash anybody else’s space, partly because of the subject matter of the show, but also because of who our leaders were. Actually, I don’t know that I’ve thought too deeply about it, but the first thing that comes to mind is that it starts from the top down. As an actor, what’s the key to joining a project where you likely all walk in as strangers, and then quickly have to find your place amongst everyone and figure out what you can bring to that? And what is it like to then also give your scene partner room to find their space, in any given moment? They both can live together, and in my dream world, I’d get to bounce between shows of all different genres.Īnother thing that the two shows have in common is that they are ensemble casts, where all the actors seem to be able to find space for their characters and the story that’s being told. And I think the inverse is possible with The Power, to have a show that’s really deeply rooted in our world and in politics and in power dynamics, especially between the genders, but to also have it be really light and entertaining and have some really dope sci-fi sequences in it. I’ve done that for the last three years with Ted Lasso. Comedy is a really dope way to Trojan horse in some of these really important, cool storylines. It’s really entertaining, and there are some really funny moments in it, as well. On paper, Ted Lasso is a comedy, but somebody could watch it and very much be like, “It’s not a comedy,” because they cried their way through it. JIMOH: I think it’s the latter, having a balance of the two in their stories.

Now that you’ve had some experience in both comedy and drama, are you finding yourself drawn more to one than the other, or do you like these projects that have a balance of the two, within one story? Although I’ve both laughed and cried watching Ted Lasso, that show definitely leans more toward comedy, most of the time. The story of The Power is quite serious and dramatic.

The power novel by naomi alderman