To promote the second season of Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis covers the August issue of GQ. The photos are blah, whatever, but the cover profile is really great! I’ve come around on Jason so much – I used to think he was just another interchangeable white comedian from SNL, a bro doing bro comedy. But over the years – and especially since Ted Lasso – I’ve started to see his depth as a person, as a writer and as an actor. Jason talks to GQ about Ted Lasso, of course, but also about his first marriage falling apart and trying to check in with how he really feels about everything. He sometimes talks like a guy who has read too many self-help books, but it’s kind of nice to hear it from a guy (since women are usually the ones who sound like that). Some highlights:
His brand of wary optimism: “There’s a great Michael J. Fox quote. ‘Don’t assume the worst thing’s going to happen, because on the off chance it does, you’ll have lived through it twice.’ So…why not do the inverse?”
Getting hired for Saturday Night Live. “I didn’t want to work on SNL,” Sudeikis said—he’d convinced himself that there were purer and less corporate paths to take. “At a certain point in your comedy journey, you have to look at it as like McDonald’s. You have to be like: ‘No. Never.’ ” Then he got the call. “It was like having a crush on the prettiest girl at school and being like, ‘She seems like a jerk.’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, really? ‘Cause she said she liked you.’ ‘She what?!’ ”
His first marriage fell apart during his time on SNL. “You’re going through something emotionally and personally, or even professionally if that’s affecting you personally, and then you’re dressed up like George Bush and you’re live on television for eight minutes. You feel like a crazy person. You feel absolutely crazy. You’re looking at yourself in the mirror and you’re just like, ‘Who am I? What is this? Holy hell.’ ”
Learning how to be a celebrity: “You’re just being tossed into the situation and then trying to figure it out. You come to be thoughtful about [the image being created]. But also try to stay open to it. I don’t ever want to be cynical.”
His split with Olivia Wilde: He and Wilde, he said, no longer share the house. They split up, according to Sudeikis, “in November 2020.” The end of their relationship was chronicled in a painful, public way in the tabloids after photos of Wilde holding hands with Harry Styles surfaced in January, setting off a flurry of conflicting timelines and explanations. Sudeikis said that even he didn’t have total clarity about the end of the relationship just yet. “I’ll have a better understanding of why in a year and an even better one in two, and an even greater one in five, and it’ll go from being, you know, a book of my life to becoming a chapter to a paragraph to a line to a word to a doodle.”
How he feels about the split right now: “That’s an experience that you either learn from or make excuses about. You take some responsibility for it, hold yourself accountable for what you do, but then also endeavor to learn something beyond the obvious from it.”
How he feels about his hard year: “I think it was really neat. I think if you have the opportunity to hit a rock bottom, however you define that, you can become 412 bones or you can land like an Avenger. I personally have chosen to land like an Avenger… It’s just how I landed. It doesn’t mean when you blast back up you’re not going to run into a bunch of sh-t and have to, you know, fight things to get back to the heights that you were at, but I’d take that over 412 bones anytime. But there is power in creating 412 bones! Because we all know that a bone, up to a certain age, when it heals, it heals stronger. So, I mean, it’s not to knock anybody that doesn’t land like an Avenger. Because there’s strength in that too.”
The big headline, I suppose, is that Jason wants it to be known that *for him* the split with Olivia happened in November 2020, which is coincidentally when Olivia began working with Harry Styles. Olivia’s PR continuously insists that Jason and Olivia had pretty much separated months earlier and that Olivia was a free woman when she started up with Harry. Jason’s view is no, that’s not how it was. The way he reflects on it makes it sound like he knew they had issues but he was sort of blind-sided by it. I don’t know. I kind of believe him.
Cover & IG courtesy of GQ.
They could both be acting in good faith. Sometimes men (more often than women) don’t read the signs, or even the blunt conversations and red flag waving for what they are.
They think as long as they are still in the same house together, it is fine.
Perhaps they had conversations about breaking up, and problems, and to her, it was done, just dying a slow death. People are slow to leave their families, especially with children involved.
So there doesn’t have to be a bad actor here.
Just two people whose relationship ran its course, and who stopped effectively communicating.
+1. Relationships sometimes come to an end because they have gone their course. Doesn’t have to be a villain or a victim.
I agree. My assumption is the relationship was basically over, but maybe she hadn’t officially moved out or something, so he thought they were still technically together.
Sometimes people mentally check out, and start looking around, before they’ve actually left. If they see something they like they’ll make a move.
When they first announced their split in November, a “source” told people they split toward the beginning of 2020. He didn’t seem to protest that until she started being photographed with Harry, so no, I don’t believe him (which might not be him outright lying, but I think he just didn’t get it that they were splitting up as early as Olivia did). I think they were probably in the process of splitting earlier that year and when Olivia met Harry she finally said “ok, let’s make this official, announce it, and be done for good.”
I don’t know, Olivia literally IG posted in bed with him all last summer, there were pictures of them hugging and her kissing his neck in October, and both did interviews calling each other their partners (Jason even did one with Kelly Clarkson I think in October where he said some very sweet things about Olivia). A lot of evidence lines up to Jason’s side. And to be honest, I think Jason probably didn’t initially contest to the timeline because he was blindsided by the breakup, they have kids, why rock the boat?
Re: the early in the year break up date – I initially thought that since he didn’t object to it it must have been true, and he doesn’t address that date in the interview but I could see Olivia getting him to agree to put the early 2020 date out there so it would appear that they had sorted through everything in a conscious uncoupling kind of thing when in fact they hadn’t, and he realized later that she actually wanted the early in the year date out there to provide cover for her relationship with Harry and he got played. Its hard to know though.
A bit o/t but a lot of stuff in comments sections all over the place about when the rumors started, what was posted on social media, who said what about the relationship in a public forum is getting taken as fact off the comments alone when there isn’t anything backing it up.
He sketches me out. I don’t know why. Im already pre-disposed to side eye SNL guys bc of the obvious douchebaggery, racism, and sexism, but his need to play heartbroken but self-actualized devoted partner is gross.
Every man I’ve ever known who has been ‘blind-sided’ by a break up just ignored their girlfriend/wife when she tried to talk to him about fixing their problems. By the time women actually leave, the relationship has been dead for a while.
I understand that he’s probably still emotional, but he had kids with the doodle. How would they feel about that description?
I feel like if Jason wasn’t so well-liked that comment would’ve caused an uproar, and rightly so. It’s a jerky thing to say, especially if they do co-parent amicably.
He said that in regards to the end of the relationship, not their entire relationship. That right now, their breakup is a pretty traumatic experience that he might not know how he will get past, but like with any kind of grief, it will slowly ebb, until he can look back with less hurt and more clarity about why it happened.
Agreed, Case.
Yeah no. You don’t call you’re ex who you shared a while life and children with that.
I’m really tired of all the passes that JS has gotten while Olivia was ripped apart for her literal swimsuit.
I get it – folks like Ted Lasso but isn’t him IRL AND JS kinda sucks and has since his last ex wife spoke about him literally hitting on other women in front of her for “research”. Tina Feh was known to lampoon people to their faces with own their parts on 30 Rock – remember his character. The doodle comment is those things all over again.
Yeah no, Liz Lemon herself described JS’ character as the only good boyfriend she ever had. He asked Liz to move with him to Cleveland. She said no. Long distance didn’t work and they broke up. He moved on and got married. He did lie to not have to talk to Liz about the women he had slept with AFTER they broke up. No one is entitled to that info or conversation. She made up being an alcoholic to get with him and got him to relapse, accidentally. So I don’t see how Tina Fey “lampooned” JS in 30 rock.
About the doodle thing, i took it as him talking about the heartbreak or pain. I could be wrong. I think cheating on your husband is worse for “the kids” that calling a failed marriage a potential doodle in the future.
He’s talking about the end of the relationship, not Olivia as a person. The heartbreak will fade. That’s how I read it anyway…
He’s a writer. He knows what he said.
I feel like he meant that about the split, and about gaining perspective and understanding, he didn’t call Olivia a doodle.
Sudeikis said that even he didn’t have total clarity about the end of the relationship just yet. “I’ll have a better understanding of why in a year and an even better one in two, and an even greater one in five, and it’ll go from being, you know, a book of my life to becoming a chapter to a paragraph to a line to a word to a doodle.” – I thought he was saying the breakup was a big part of his story right now but over time, it wouldn’t be.
The subject of the sentence was why the relationship failed. In the present as you’re going through it, the why is confusing and all consuming, but eventually it will be less so.
If anyone watched RHONJ, this is like Teresa not understanding what analogy is all over again.
i think they might have had issues but were in talks or working through them, and that she likely drove a nail in the coffin by being photographed with Harry. She has long stated her commitmentphobia, and how she would burn a relationship to the ground. and he probably was still thinking that he could work through their issues or change her mind because they had been together for so long.
There is no harm in being blind to love.
I think he thought he had built a life with someone who he lived with and had kids with — and to me — it seems like he was fully invested in that and had no reason to believe it would change. I think that was true for the most part and Olivia met Harry and there must have been some insane chemistry and that was that. So he probably was blindsided!!
There were stories that he brought women home when Olivia was out of town, I don’t believe he stayed monogamous. Since they never married, there could be many issues on both sides.
Those “stories” came from CDAN which is q anon lite
I never really thought much about him other than a guy from SNL. He completely won me over with Ted Lasso. I simply adore it & have fallen madly in love with simply everyone on that show!! Watch it is you haven’t. It is Brilliant, well done & v v fun.
Ted Lasso is fantastic, I also love the show.
Jason has been pretty respectful about all of this, didn’t say a bad word about Harry or Olivia. There were tons of rumors last October/November of them hooking up on set and then the breakup rumors hit.
There’s also been a ton of rumors about how annoyed the people on set were with Harry and Olivia and the way they went about this.
I’m glad he’s getting his moment in the sun. I’ve always been a fan. He seems to take joy in all that he does. We’re the same age. He is on my list. I love a feministy guy.
I love Ted Lasso the show very, very much but it’s hard not to read Ted Lasso’s marriage ending as a somewhat autobiographical part of the story. Maybe that was a convenient way to add depth to a character and give him a reason to be there in the first place, and a very similar thing just happened to happen to him. Who knows but writers mine story from their own lives all the time and it would really be more unfortunate if he and the rest of the writing staff wrote that for him and 6 to 12 months later his long standing relationship fell apart and he hadn’t realized it earlier.
But he had a first marriage he could mine from? And there’s a whole writers room of people involved who maybe also had breakups to mine from?
Pretty sure he filmed the first season of Ted Lasso BEFORE he and Olivia broke up. Also he was married before getting with Olivia to a woman who works in the industry. He had plenty of real life experience weathering a real divorce (though this one was without kids). This is one of those things where with bad timing life imitates art.
IJS, last October he was on Brene Brown’s podcast and very much was talking about Olivia as his partner in the present tense. I don’t know who would go on Brene Brown’s podcast and lie about that. If there was some hiding going on on his side, you don’t bring up your partner that way.