Interview with Brett Goldstein
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Brett Goldstein
English actor, writer and stand-up comedian. He plays Roy Kent on Ted Lasso, co-created Shrinking, and released the special The Second Best Night of Your Life.
Source: Vulture on YouTube
These answers are taken from Ted Lasso's Brett Goldstein Loves Making Fun of Shakespeare | Good One Podcast on Vulture's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What do you enjoy most about comedy?
I always wanted to make stuff. I love the making of. Truly, I love making stuff. I love making short films. I love the creative act. I f***ing love it. It makes me feel connected to the universe and gives me purpose and makes me happy.
Stand-up you can't do on your own. You do it on your own, but you have to do it with an audience. You can't rehearse it. You can't practice it. You can only do it with an audience, and it is an active thing with an audience. The audience can't sit there doing nothing. The audience have to give love to get love. If an audience sits with their arms folded and goes, “Impress me,” they are going to see a less good gig, because you've got nothing to surf on. If an audience gives you energy, they will see a better show. So it is a two-way street.
What was a great moment for you as a comedian?
Sesame Street. I remember being nervous, like, “What if they're all dicks? This will ruin my life.” But one of the reasons I loved it so much is the reverence that the people making it have for it is the same reverence that someone who loves it has for it. They are trying to give it the same sense of heart and soul.
On your dressing room door they have Sesame Street type, which you get to keep. And then you go in the set, and there's a box of tissues, because most people burst into tears, and they're so used to it. And you're like, “I can't believe this.” I did the first scene with Cookie Monster, and he was so funny. I was shocked how funny Cookie Monster was. In the script I get tied up in a skipping rope, and there was a discussion between Elmo and Grover about how is this happening. It can't be stupid. We have to earn this moment. They took it seriously. Everyone was brilliant. The show is called The Second Best Night of Your Life because I have the joke that Sesame Street was the best day of my life, but now I have to continue living.
How did your career as a comedian unfold?
I was always working. I was always doing a little part in something, and I was writing for other people and I script edited other people's shows. But everything that was my thing didn't happen, and would get kicked down the well. I did make a film, SuperBob, which I'm very, very proud of, but it was on in three cinemas and didn't change anything. I came and did pilot season and made an HBO pilot that didn't get picked up. I came back the next year and did a pilot with Bill Lawrence and that didn't get picked up.
And I sort of had this moment where I was like, “You know what? I'm not a baby anymore. I think the window has passed.” But I work all the time. I make my own stuff. I do stand-up every night. I make enough money to pay my bills, I wear black t-shirts and I go to the cinema. If this is it, I'm a very lucky man. And I genuinely let go. And then three weeks later, Bill Lawrence calls and says, “Do you want to come work on Ted Lasso?” And then everything happened.
What advice do you have for new comedians?
My advice is always, always make your own stuff. I always think it's easy for people who are currently making things to say. It's easy for me to say, but I lived it. The big thing didn't happen till I was 38, and I was working for 20 years before that. And in those 20 years, I made stuff at a very small level. That is my advice: make stuff, make stuff, make stuff. Write stuff, do open mics, do everything. You have no excuse. You just have to not sleep. There's enough time if you don't sleep.
What has been your greatest accomplishment as a comedian?
The season 1 Emmys, we were like naive innocents in a magical woodland. There was nothing cynical about those Emmys, in a way that was lovely when I think back. It was still COVID, so it was smaller, so it was a bit more manageable. And just us being a gang of innocents. There was no agenda, because we came into it pure-hearted. We're not going to win. We're nobodies. We're just little people from England. It felt really magical, in a way that I don't think we could have that experience again, because now you're much more aware of the machine.
I truly didn't expect to win. No joke. Not being humble. Someone had said to me, “Write something,” but I didn't believe it was a thing. Even when they said my name, I didn't understand it. Everyone stood up around me, and then I saw my name on the screen and I was like, “Oh, I guess I've got to go walk up and do this thing now.”
Has your career as a comedian progressed the way you expected?
It's amazing. So grateful. Can't believe it, every single day. I can't believe I get to do this. I have the feeling it'll probably all end tomorrow. But again, it's sort of a joke and kind of not a joke: I did Sesame Street, so it doesn't matter. I had a great run. I did Sesame Street. That is much more than I expected. And I'm so grateful. I really am doing the things that I wanted to do. It's very, very amazing.
The downside is I don't sleep. I truly sleep four hours, max. My brain's on fire. It's constantly on fire.
Of all the specials, sets and projects you have done, which is your favorite?
I really, really love everyone, but anytime I had a scene with Phil, with Jamie Tartt, was hard, because we would laugh and ruin it all the time. But I particularly loved season two, me and Keeley. There was something special about when me and Juno did the Roy and Keeley stuff. We spent a lot of time in her house, which was separate from the set, so it always felt like a kind of special island. She's so brilliant and so open, and it felt genuinely intimate.
I really love the moment in season two when he's made a bath for her. Phoebe Walsh wrote that episode, and the words are the same as they were in the script. But Juno was like, “Can we have a minute on our own?” And we worked out this routine of him undressing her in a way that kept everything covered, and as he's undressing her, he's saying, “Your feet are disgusting,” but in a very romantic way. I think it's very special. It was a great bit of writing from Phoebe, and us finding it together was also lovely.
Describe your style.
I would like it to be something that's at least attempting to be made with love, and it's probably got some sex in it. I think everything I write about is really “What is love?” That's all that's interesting, isn't it? It's the connection between people, the relationship people have with each other. That's what I lock into. Will they, won't they is the best thing ever and will always be. It's why you care about stuff.
Sometimes it's fun in stand-up to take an extreme stance that you half mean. I don't like the idea of punching down, but I like that I'm furiously taking down Shakespeare.
For some reason, people don't mind me talking about sex. But they don't like me doing one-liners. I've discovered I'm not great at them anyway. Every time I've had a thing that is just a one-liner, they go, “No, we don't want that from you. No, thank you.”
Tell me about a bit or a project that was hard to get right. What was it and why was it challenging?
Roy Kent. It wasn't until season one came out that I was really sure, and I don't think anyone was, because it's a big swing. I've got this shoulders back, starts, got a voice. I'm taking some big swings, and I think there was a lot of doubt. So I had the fear. I remember me and Hannah Waddingham speaking a few days before it came out, and I assumed the reviews would be like, “There's one very bad person in this show. This one person really ruined this show, but the rest of it is great.” So thank God it was well received, because I genuinely wasn't sure.
With Lewis on Shrinking, Bill did not want me to play it. Bill sent me a very sweet text where he said, “I believe in you as an artist, and if you think you can do this, I will back you and support you.” And I said, “Thank you, Bill. That means a lot.” And he said, “But this entire season rests on his character, and if you f*** it up, you kill Shrinking.” And I said, “Okay, thanks.”
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
For the Roy Kent self-tape, I went to my manager's office. They have a little white room where they have a camera and you do self-tapes with an assistant in their office. And what's funny about it is I read with this assistant, who was, I believe, a Norwegian man. So I had a Norwegian man reading Keeley off camera. Me and this Norwegian man really had some chemistry, I guess. I worked very hard on it. Kept this poor Norwegian man at work a long time.
For Yesterday in the special, I wrote a letter to Paul McCartney and I said, “I get it, brother. This is a big deal. This is a big song. But the context in which I'm using it, I think it's pretty beautiful.” And I said that his song has changed the world and saved people's lives, and please, please can we have it. And he said yes, for free. There's one price which is standard for everyone, and then there's the thing which is like millions. That bit was free.
Brett Goldstein's Full Biography
Brett attended school in Sutton, Surrey before reading Film Studies at Warwick University. At 22, Brett went to New York to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. Aside from performing, he began to write his own plays and take them to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but ultimately decided that comedy was less depressing. In 2006, began his stand-up career with a show entitled 'Brett Goldstein Grew Up in a Strip Club'. He began appearing to a wider audience in a variety of television sitcoms, including 'Derek', 'Uncle', 'Drifters' and the Emmy award winning "Hoff The Record". In 2015, he wrote and starred in the title role of 'SuperBob', a superhero romantic comedy set in Peckham, directed by his old classmate from Sutton, Jon Drever. Brett has become an award-winning actor, writer and stand-up, and over time has made three more hours of stand-up that premiered in Edinburgh and toured the UK and overseas: 'Brett Goldstein Contains Scenes Of An Adult Nature', 'Brett Goldstein: Burning Man', and 'Brett Goldstein: What Is Love Baby Don't Hurt Me'.