The stars of Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” appeared at the White House on Monday to discuss the importance of mental health.
“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter who you voted for,” we all know someone who has “struggled, that’s felt isolated, that’s felt anxious, that has felt alone,” said Jason Sudeikis, who plays the title character on the Emmy-Award-winning show.
It’s one thing “we all have in common as human beings,” he said.
President Joe Biden — who has discussed his desire to tackle mental health issues across the country by way of a “unity agenda” — tweeted a photo on Sunday of the Oval Office with a “BELIEVE” sign taped above the entry, recreating an iconic image from “Ted Lasso.”
In the show’s second season, Lasso experiences panic attacks. Above his office hangs a sign that reads “BELIEVE.”
The show’s other stars were also in attendance, including Brett Goldstein, Jeremy Swift, Hannah Waddingham, Billy Harris, Phil Dunster, Toheeb Jimoh, Brendan Hunt, James Lance, Cristo Fernandez and Kola Bokinni.
Sudeikis noted that the show’s third season emphasizes mental health and checking in with other people.
“The big theme of the show is to check in with your neighbor, your co-worker, your friends, your family, and ask how they’re doing and listen,” Sudeikis said. “We also have to know that we shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help ourselves, and that does take a lot, especially when it’s something that has such a negative stigma to it, such as mental health, and it doesn’t need to be that way.”
In 2021, Sudeikis talked to Us Weekly about how “Ted Lasso” has helped influence attitudes about therapy and mental health.
“In regard to the mental health stuff, it was just there. It’s been there forever, but it’s really come up a lot in just knowing where the characters were headed and how important it is to work on yourself to help your team,” the actor told the magazine. “And I think that we were trying to explore that and personify it in a way.”
He compared the show to a “kind of Trojan horse,” saying that there are “bigger issues in this fun, silly little comedy show.”
Sudeikis added: “And myself and other people in the cast and the writing staff get messages daily from people thanking them for really opening their eyes to what it means to go to therapy and what it means for someone in their own life to go to therapy and just speaking about these things and taking the stigma off of any form of health, whether it be nutrition or mental, emotional health.”