Grant Feely is excited to be stepping into Henry Lasso’s boots for Ted Lasso Season 4. When I interviewed him ahead of the award-winning comedy’s return, he was looking forward to the New York City premiere after hitting the white and blue carpet with the show’s cast and crew at the Los Angeles premiere. There’s an extra layer of appreciation for this experience for Feely, too. He was looking forward to the show’s return well before he got the part. “I was excited that they were expanding, extending the series. So when I got the audition initially, I was very pumped, and I put all my efforts towards it,” Feely shared.
Feely is taking over the role from Gus Turner, who appeared as Henry Lasso in Ted Lasso’s first three seasons. Part of Feely’s effort was revisiting the show’s existing seasons. He also explained that he “kind of tried to take Ted Lasso’s energy and kind of put it into Henry in the audition.” Next up: a chemistry read with Jason Sudeikis, who plays the titular character and Henry’s dad. Then, he got the role and could start making Henry Lasso his own in Season 4.
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The young actor marks the time jump between seasons as a good starting point. There have been three years between Ted leaving London for Henry in Kansas City and the Season 4 premiere. “Obviously, naturally, people grow up, people change,” Feely explained. “So it was definitely easier coming to the role than it would have been because it doesn’t have to be an exact match with past seasons.” He mentions that “some characteristics of” younger Henry still exist in the character, as do “a lot of characters from Ted.” The latter makes it “very fun seeing their…father/son dynamics this season.”
As for the soccer part of Henry’s life, Grant Feely “had to really brush up on” his skills for the first episode. That initiative became a family experience. “I had to hire my brothers to teach me more about soccer. And when I tell people that, they just think that my brother probably did it out of favor, that they did it for free,” Feely said. He laughed as he revealed that he had to pay his brothers to assist him on the pitch. “They negotiated that each of them got five percent of my first episode. It was crazy. I had to pay them to teach me soccer.”
It helps that Feely had that pre-existing relationship with the sport. In fact, he said he played his whole life before spending less time on the ball and more time in front of the camera. As acting became the priority, his brothers continued to play, which led them all to Ted Lasso. Soccer is also at the heart of a lot for Ted and Henry this season, independently and as a father/son unit.
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Ted tries to show up for Henry, “and sometimes through the season, that balance isn’t as well-balanced as it should be.” In turn, Feely teases that there may be some “conflict between the two characters” because of the sport–or at least further elevated by it. But Feely isn’t only anticipating fans’ reactions to Henry and Ted’s scenes. There really is so much for Ted Lasso Season 4 to explore with Henry’s interpersonal dynamics – three years on.
Feely is “really excited to see this new version of this character interact with all these other characters that are well established in the series.” Ted Lasso fans will know that there’s a thread, even in Ted’s mind, between Henry and Phil Dunster’s Jamie Tartt in the show’s original three-season run.
There are already photos released of Feely’s Henry wearing a #9, just like Tartt (and Henry) in the earlier seasons. With that throughline’s existence, is Feely looking ahead at another multi-season arc for Henry? He would “be very pumped” to continue playing this character in a potential fifth season – and beyond. “They definitely set up…the beginning of an arc in this season.”
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He also shared that he learned a lot more about the production of a TV show behind the scenes of Ted Lasso. He appreciated that so many of the main cast members, like Sudeikis and Brett Goldstein, who is returning as Roy Kent, “play a bunch of different roles on set. They’re all executive producers, they’re all writers, they’re all starring. And it really showed me how you can do so many different things while just being an actor on a set.”
Seeing that on the Ted Lasso set made Feely realize that “it may be something I want to pursue in the future.” Also in the future, Feely wants to explore Henry’s dynamic with Roy, who is Feely’s favorite Ted Lasso character. He thinks that relationship would “be so funny for fans to see.” Knowing Roy’s dynamic with his niece Phoebe (Elodie Blomfield), I can only imagine what his dynamic would be like with Henry – or a scene with all three characters. Maybe one day!
For now, Feely is focused on this season, which is finally here after three years. He hopes that it “kind of leads on the legacy of…everyone’s comfort show.” He spoke to the show’s positivity and its ability to instill “so many great values in people. And I think that’s why people fell in love with it. I really hope that Season 4 continues to do that, just as the past three seasons have.”
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