![\"brett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/37468997-3fc6-48c4-bdd9-1be8998f388a.jpg\" "\\"brett")
<\/p>\nA few years ago, Brett Goldstein thought his career was over. This was the mid-2010s, before Ted Lasso, before Shrinking, before he wound up playing a Greek god for Marvel and starring opposite Jennifer Lopez in a romcom he wrote himself. Back then, Goldstein was just a working comedian, performing to small crowds in sticky London bars and comedy clubs a few nights a week.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019d get tiny acting jobs, I did stand-up comedy and I would edit other people\u2019s scripts,\u2019 Goldstein recalls. \u2018I always earned just enough to be able to pay my rent and go to the cinema.\u2019 Growing up in Sutton, south London, Goldstein dreamed of making films and had studied film and feminism at Warwick University with the hope of making it in Hollywood. By his thirties, he\u2019d played parts in TV shows such as Ricky Gervais\u2019s Derek and The Catherine Tate Show, and wrote and starred in small films, such as Superbob (an action comedy about a postman bestowed with superpowers). \u2018But I wasn\u2019t getting any bigger,\u2019 he says. \u2018No one saw any of the stuff I was making.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then, in 2016, he flew to Los Angeles for pilot season \u2013 the high-stakes window in which new shows are pitched and bought by US networks \u2013 and landed a part in a new HBO series. \u2018I was so excited,\u2019 he says. It was not to be: a key executive left the studio while they were filming, \u2018and it was suddenly like, \u201cthe show\u2019s never going to happen\u201d\u2019. Crestfallen, he returned to London, and his old routine.<\/p>\n
The next year, a similar story. \u2018I went back and did pilot season again,\u2019 he says. This time, he secured a role in a new sitcom from Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, about life at a SpaceX-style rocket start-up. \u2018It was like, \u201cThis is amazing, this is going to be huge.\u201d\u2019 He packed up his house in London and got ready to move to the States for production. \u2018And then that show didn\u2019t get picked up, and I was like, \u201cOh. Fuck.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n
By his third pilot season, Goldstein was losing faith. \u2018I wasn\u2019t even auditioning for anything I thought was good. I was being sent scripts and thinking, \u201cI don\u2019t even want to be in this.\u201d\u2019 He was staying alone in LA, feeling increasingly down. \u2018It was all a bit grim. Also, I was getting older and I had this moment of genuine\u2026 I don\u2019t know, epiphany, or something, where I was like, \u201cMaybe I\u2019ve missed my window. Maybe the window for me having any sort of big success has gone.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n
Goldstein recognises now that he wasn\u2019t just down. \u2018I was depressed,\u2019 he says. He saw a therapist. Nothing seemed to help, until the therapist recommended that he start a gratitude journal. \u2018Every day she made me write a list of 10 things that happened that day that I was grateful for.\u2019 This didn\u2019t come naturally. \u2018In the beginning, when you\u2019re so, so depressed, it\u2019s like, \u201cNothing\u201d. But you have to put 10 in. \u201cThe sun was up.\u201d That\u2019s one. You start so small. But by day 30 of doing that, you\u2019ve started training your brain to look for the positive, and I could write a list of 100 things. I\u2019m the luckiest guy in the world! Everything\u2019s fucking amazing!\u2019<\/p>\n
So it was with this new mindset that he thought about the failed pilots, about missing his window and came to a realisation: \u2018All I ever wanted to do was to make stuff,\u2019 he says. \u2018I\u2019m still doing that. I\u2019m doing it at a very low level, but I do it nearly every day. And that\u2019s the bit I actually like. I don\u2019t care about being famous. If my life is what I have at the moment, then I\u2019m the luckiest guy in the world.\u2019 He breaks off the story and smiles, ever a comedian, unable to resist a good punchline. \u2018And then I think two weeks later, I got the phone call about Ted Lasso.\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"brett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d7a9876c-313b-4a11-a4ae-864c35028423.jpg\" "\\"brett")
Body of Work<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a cloud-strewn summer morning in south London, and although we are technically here to talk about Ted Lasso, it\u2019s by sheer coincidence we are talking on a football pitch, of sorts; the owner of the Wandsworth mansion we\u2019re using for this cover shoot has an indoor goal set up on a tiny Astroturf in the basement. Goldstein isn\u2019t here for a kickabout, though. The space has been colonised by hair and make-up, and Goldstein, freshly moisturised, is talking over the jet-like din of a Dyson hairdryer.<\/p>\n
This glow up marks a brief respite in this, the busiest year of his career. Now 46, Goldstein has never been more in demand: he\u2019s in the middle of a press tour for Office Romance, the Netflix romcom he wrote and stars in alongside Lopez, and which a few days from now will hit number one on the streamer\u2019s viewing charts. Before that, he was promoting the unlikely hit Sheep Detectives, in which he voiced two boisterous rams helping to solve a murder case. Then there\u2019s Ted Lasso, the heartwarming football comedy, which returns for its fourth season in August; Escorted, a new show about life as a male escort; and a fourth season of Shrinking, the therapy drama on which he serves as writer, executive producer and occasional actor, alongside his idol Harrison Ford<\/a>. \u2018I need to work on my work-life balance,\u2019 Goldstein says, happily. \u2018Because I have none.\u2019<\/p>\n This joyous second act \u2013 going from stand-up to screenwriter to Hollywood multi-hyphenate, and now leading man \u2013 does have its downsides. For one, he says, the constant travel is disrupting his fitness routine. \u2018I can\u2019t believe I ever get to a gym,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n Goldstein started working out seriously around a decade ago, to play a superhero in Superbob. \u2018I just kind of stayed working out, because it really did help my head,\u2019 he says. Although he\u2019s been in decent shape ever since, more recent roles \u2013 not least playing Hercules in a post-credit scene for 2022\u2019s Thor: Love And Thunder<\/a> \u2013 have put more pressure on him to look good. \u2018Being topless in stuff certainly makes you go, \u201cYeah, I really need to work out.\u201d\u2019 he laughs.<\/p>\n In Office Romance, for example, he knew he had a beach scene with Lopez, so told his then-trainer, LA-based Jeff Yahiro, that he wanted to up his game. \u2018I said, \u201cI\u2019m playing a lawyer,\u201d and he goes, \u201cI don\u2019t like it in films when lawyers are really jacked. I think you\u2019re in good enough shape,\u201d\u2019 Goldstein says. \u2018Then a week later he came back and went, \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about this. It\u2019s with J-Lo?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah.\u201d He said, \u201cWe\u2019ve gotta get working.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Yahiro\u2019s advice was to lift heavier<\/a>, and with more intensity. It worked: on camera as in real life, Goldstein\u2019s in great shape, visibly strong and attainably (rather than cartoonishly) ripped. He is also \u2013 as one female friend of mine commented approvingly when I told her I was doing this interview \u2013 the rare leading man who still has a full chest of hair. \u2018I only realised when I first went to LA what an anomaly I was,\u2019 he says. \u2018When I first went in a rooftop pool, I think someone called pest control. Also, Marvel didn\u2019t have any issue with it,\u2019 he says, of playing Hercules. \u2018It\u2019s probably why they cast me \u2013 the chest hair.\u2019 Before you ask, no, he doesn\u2019t have any news on if he\u2019ll be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe again.<\/p>\n \u2018I have to exercise every day or I go mad\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Now that he\u2019s living in New York, Goldstein is working with a new trainer, Victor Del Valle. \u2018It\u2019s always superset<\/a> circuits, very heavy weights,\u2019 he explains. \u2018He absolutely fucking destroys me Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I spend the rest of the week trying to recover.\u2019 Even then, he tries to exercise every day \u2013 walking or running \u2013 and also does reformer Pilates once a week.<\/p>\n Keeping fit plays another crucial role for Goldstein: keeping his head straight. \u2018I have to exercise every day or I go mad,\u2019 he explains. His favourite escape is swimming, though he rarely gets the chance around work. \u2018I love being in water. I think I was a mermaid in a previous life,\u2019 he says. A couple of years ago, after watching the documentary The Deepest Breath, he became mildly obsessed with freediving; after training for some time, he can now hold his breath for four minutes. \u2018It\u2019s very mindful. You have to not use any energy, and that includes thinking about shit.\u2019 (Even so, don\u2019t try it at home. \u2018It\u2019s dangerous,\u2019 he says. \u2018I don\u2019t want to be responsible for people dying.\u2019)<\/p>\n Alongside working out, Goldstein has developed other, smaller self-care routines. Remarkably, despite his schedule, he still performs stand-up at least once a week; little guest slots here or there, a chance to try out new material or test gags for the script he\u2019s writing. \u2018If I\u2019m doing stand-up, I will meditate before I go on stage,\u2019 he explains. \u2018I\u2019ve learned to stay small for the day, so that I can be big when I go on stage. It\u2019s similar to the breath thing; you conserve energy.\u2019<\/p>\n After more than a decade, he says, stand-up is part exorcism, part exercise. \u2018Stand-ups sometimes call it \u201cworking it out\u201d,\u2019 he explains. \u2018It\u2019s like going to the gym. If you don\u2019t go, you get rusty. And sometimes I\u2019m like, \u201cFucking hell, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019ve got a gig tonight, I\u2019m mad.\u201d But I always feel better afterwards and am delighted I did it.\u2019<\/p>\n It has proven grounding in this new, often disorientating phase of his career. \u2018The big red carpet stuff is stressful. It\u2019s so intense and you have to really prep yourself,\u2019 he says. \u2018But sometimes you\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, this is hard, but it\u2019s not harder than a comedy club on a Friday night.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n This joyous second act, of course, all started with Ted Lasso. The sitcom, about an American coach hired to manage the fictional football team Richmond FC, became a lockdown hit back in 2020 \u2013 a dose of big-hearted escapism amid the anxiety and trauma of a global pandemic. Goldstein, originally hired as a writer, ended up auditioning for and playing the part of Roy Kent, an ageing, bitter midfielder with a voice like a cement mixer, whose cynicism is the perfect foil to the unfailingly sunny Ted (played by Jason Sudeikis).<\/p>\n As Kent, Goldstein became the show\u2019s breakout star. Suddenly, fans were heckling him at gigs and in the street, singing the character\u2019s crowd chant (\u2018he\u2019s here, he\u2019s there, he\u2019s every-fucking-where\u2026\u2019). The show wrapped in 2023 after three seasons, with Ted moving back to the US to be with his son. But in 2024, the show\u2019s producers floated to Goldstein the idea of returning for a fourth. \u2018I was always like, \u201cWe\u2019re not done,\u201d\u2019 Goldstein says. \u2018Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but it just felt like it\u2019s such a lovely world that we\u2019ve built, it seemed crazy not to go back and do more.\u2019<\/p>\n The new Ted Lasso is itself, therefore, something of a second act. Roy Kent is now managing the men\u2019s squad and Ted is instead hired by Richmond to coach its new women\u2019s team. While several of the original cast are returning, there\u2019s also a new locker room of faces, with new storylines. \u2018I always think it\u2019s like Springfield, there are so many characters,\u2019 Goldstein says. \u2018It allows you to do a new thing \u2013 not lose all the things you love from the original, but you get to expand the world.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I definitely grew up with the feelings of, \u201cMen aren\u2019t supposed to show emotions\u201d\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n One of the reasons that Lasso became a hit, I suggest, is that it provided an alternative vision of manhood in a moment when discussions around masculinity are often dominated by \u2018manosphere\u2019 influencers such as Andrew Tate. Instead of an aggressive image of male success as fast cars, domination and misogyny, here was a show that allowed men to be vulnerable without being feminine, sensitive without being soft. Roy, for example, is both a hard-tackling tough guy and a surprising font of romcom one-liners. (\u2018You deserve someone who makes you feel like you\u2019ve been struck by fucking lightning,\u2019 he growls at Hannah Waddingham\u2019s Rebecca. \u2018Don\u2019t you dare settle for fine!\u2019) \u2018I didn\u2019t go into it going, \u201cI\u2019m gonna write about non-toxic masculinity,\u201d\u2019 says Goldstein. \u2018You write the characters and then you find the themes later. You realise, \u201cOh, I\u2019m writing about this.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Writing and acting in the show has helped Goldstein empathise with men and what makes us the way we are. \u2018I definitely wasn\u2019t raised that you shouldn\u2019t cry in front of people, for example,\u2019 he says. \u2018That was not something my dad or my mum told me. But it is something I felt. I definitely grew up with the feelings of, \u201cMen aren\u2019t supposed to show emotions.\u201d But then I got older, and my experience with women was whenever I was accidentally vulnerable it went very well. I was like, \u201cOh, I guess I\u2019ve been learning the wrong lessons.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Something similar, he says, is also true of men\u2019s body image<\/a>. \u2018My trainer in New York, he was a professional bodybuilder and there are pictures of him on the wall in amazing shape,\u2019 he says. \u2018He said, \u201cMen love it. Women hate it.\u201d\u2019 He laughs. \u2018There are all these things where I think most people don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing, they have been behaving how they think they\u2019re meant to behave.\u2019<\/p>\n One theme that unites both Ted Lasso and Shrinking is the limits of perfection; the idea that anyone has the answers, influencers included. Ted is an inspirational coach, yet a divorcee who suffers from panic attacks; Jimmy, the protagonist of Shrinking, is a messed-up widower who treats his patients while breaching ethical boundaries. \u2018The most important rule of writing that I ever learned is you have to love all of your characters. Even if you are writing about bad people \u2013 men or women \u2013 you have to know where they\u2019re coming from,\u2019 Goldstein says. \u2018I do believe that, in 98% of cases, people don\u2019t like doing harm \u2013 and yet people do hurt each other a lot. And I think it comes from being unconscious, from making mistakes, from ego, from all kinds of reasons. Most people are doing their best. They\u2019re struggling, or they\u2019re angry because they\u2019ve not had the breaks, or whatever. There\u2019s usually a pretty good reason for why people behave the way they do, even if they don\u2019t know it.\u2019<\/p>\n Lately, Ted Lasso\u2019s return has Goldstein thinking about second acts \u2013 and about endings. While the show\u2019s third season finished with several of the characters\u2019 stories neatly tied off, the fourth confronts the often messy reality of what happens afterwards. \u2018It\u2019s the end of The Graduate,\u2019 he says. \u2018They run off into the sunset, and then the camera doesn\u2019t cut. They\u2019re like, \u201cOh. Now what?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Goldstein has experience of this himself. In 2021, after years of failed auditions and futile pilot seasons, he won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor, for Ted Lasso. (He won it again in 2022.) The day after that first awards show \u2013 in which he blundered and swore through his speech, charmingly shocked to have won \u2013 he remembers driving to the beach with his co-star Hannah Waddingham. \u2018We were like \u201cWe have to get our heads straight or we\u2019ll go mad,\u201d\u2019 he says. \u2018We watched the sunset and got grounded again.\u2019<\/p>\n That\u2019s the Hollywood ending: lifelong dream achieved, a literal sunset. But of course, life isn\u2019t like a film or a TV show. Our victories too often come just before setbacks; the only ending any of us get will invariably involve mourners and hearses. Even after the best day of your life, you have to wake up the next morning. That feeling can derail a person if they\u2019re not careful. \u2018It doesn\u2019t fill the hole,\u2019 Goldstein says, of winning awards. \u2018It\u2019s a lovely thing, but it doesn\u2019t cure you.\u2019<\/p>\n It\u2019s a few weeks after our meeting in London, Goldstein and I are talking over Zoom. He\u2019s in New York, about to start filming on a new, unnamed project. \u2018I\u2019m so lucky, crazy lucky. I get to do the things I want to do and I\u2019m so grateful,\u2019 he says. \u2018But \u2013 and I\u2019m not married \u2013 I often think it\u2019s the equivalent of people\u2019s wedding days. People talk about the honeymoon being over, the feeling of like, \u201cWe were building towards this thing, we did the thing, now what? We just come home from work and sit on the sofa?\u201d\u2019 He smiles. \u2018And I\u2019m like: the sofa is the best bit.\u2019<\/p>\n Goldstein brings up the story about the gratitude list again. Don\u2019t misunderstand. The point of that story isn\u2019t about fate, or manifestation, or any of that LA nonsense. Quite the opposite. That phone call he got about Ted Lasso? It was from Bill Lawrence, of the Spaced Out pilot. He remembered that Goldstein was a writer and loved football \u2013 would he be interested in a new show about a lovable soccer coach? You see, Goldstein thought he\u2019d missed his window. But if he\u2019d given up, and hadn\u2019t done all those failed auditions, he\u2019d never have landed the gig that would end up changing his life. If he hadn\u2019t put in the work at therapy to build healthier habits, he wouldn\u2019t have mentally been in a place to do it and would never have turned those experiences into Shrinking, a show about therapy and the power of second chances.<\/p>\n \u2018You can look for the good. It\u2019s a fucking skill \u2013 or, something you have to work at\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Goldstein, ever the cinephile, often talks in film references \u2013 The Graduate, the Pixar film Soul \u2013 brings up Groundhog Day, the seminal Bill Murray comedy about a man trapped to live the same day over and over. \u2018The events of the day are identical. What affects his day is how he chooses to act in it,\u2019 he says. \u2018There\u2019s a depressing day, there\u2019s a happy day \u2013 the day is the same. It\u2019s up to him.\u2019<\/p>\n He tells the story again, of the month he spent learning gratitude and how it saved him in his darkest moments. \u2018I can\u2019t tell you the exact day it was \u2013 day 26, let\u2019s say. But I really was like, \u201cOh, I get to choose how I see the world,\u201d\u2019 he says. \u2018It really had changed me, built new synapses, whatever it is.\u2019 He smiles, softer this time, his gravelly voice giving way for something softer. \u2018You can look for the good. It\u2019s a fucking skill \u2013 or, something you have to work at. And I don\u2019t always achieve it. I still have darker days. But gratitude helps.\u2019<\/p>\n Photography: Ian Harrison This interview features in the September 2026 issue of Men’s Health \u2013 out now. Subscribe to MH by hitting this link<\/a>.![\"brett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a8e8e5d3-5a7a-4408-8bba-e72495104896.jpg\" "\\"brett")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"brett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787642784_643_f024a165-aaa2-4e4c-984f-e4b0ed47b7b1.jpg\" "\\"brett")
Man Made<\/p>\n\n
![\"brett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/7491d085-f076-4295-9289-d765bc96f18f.jpg\" "\\"brett")
Happily Ever After<\/p>\n\n
Styling: Eric Down
Grooming: Nadia Altinbas using Shark Beauty, 111Skin and Oribe
Stylist Assistant: Andrew Burling <\/p>\n![\"man](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787642787_107_7894a06d-c2f4-441b-ba25-98329659fc85.jpg\" "\\"man")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few years ago, Brett Goldstein thought his career was over. This was the mid-2010s, before Ted Lasso,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1022686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,2392,409137,16975,171,311952,1200,409136,365830,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1022685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-7df872b6-3906-4d7b-b12f-ebc9cafd9b1b","tag-displaytype-long-form-article","tag-entertainment","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-how-brett-goldstein-got-in-leading-man-shape-at-46","tag-sponsored-false","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117154966161843607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}