Ted Lasso’s AFC Richmond has had a rough season. With the arrival and departure of superstar newcomer Zava, “wonderkid” Nate Shelley leaving them for West Ham, a string of humiliating losses, and the coaches not really knowing what to do it all it all, it seems like the team can’t catch a break.
But if there is one person who has really managed to hold the squad, its coaching staff, its manager, and essentially the entire Richmond operation together, it is their head of football operations Leslie Higgins, who is played by Jeremy Swift. And he’s done so without even realizing it.
Higgins is, unwittingly, the glue that holds Richmond together. There is no grand declaration of this, and the character is definitely not someone who would ever claim credit for it. He is, as Swift tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed over Zoom, an “accidental Yoda”.
“I think he often doesn't know that he has this innate sort of mentorship, sort of ability until he's asked. And then what he offers up seems to surprise himself as much as everybody else. So he's not like Yoda, but maybe an accidental Yoda,” he says, laughing, “It just sort of passes through him. He’s a conduit.”
“I think [it’s] just partly seen as his job to kind of come up with ideas to blow the dust off things and just freshen up the team's approach and move them forward. So yeah, he is the glue,” he adds.
Jeremy Swift and Hannah Waddingham.
Colin HuttonOn screen, Higgins is someone everyone on the show has come to rely on. He started off as this jittery, meek underling of Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), who was trying not to step a foot out of line, and, over the seasons, blossomed into a man who now thrives in the environment he knows best—the Richmond football club.
He never seems to want to take the spotlight—and neither is he given much of it in the show—but when he does have it, he makes an impact. In the latest episode, “We’ll Never Have Paris,” Swift’s Higgins only appears in one scene, but it's enough to make his mark.
Ted (Jason Sudeikis) summons the Diamond Dogs, his nickname for the Richmond staffers who have become his personal-life confidants, to discuss how he’s worried that his ex-wife might be getting proposed to in Paris Higgins tells him: “You should find out before you flip out,” which is frankly advice that all of us should follow.
This is a line that actually dates back to Sudeikis’ Saturday Night Live days, and is something Sudeikis actually told Swift while they were filming the second season.
“That little phrase actually came out of something I think Jason [experienced] when he was on SNL. At the beginning of Season 2, being relatively older than everybody else, I was one of the first people to get a COVID vaccination. And it came up very quickly. I was suddenly put into a scene on that day that clashed with [the scheduling of] it. So I went up to him, and I told him about it. That's what he said: Find out before you flip out,” he said.
Swift, you’ll be happy to know, did get the vaccination that day, and he managed to film the scene as scheduled.
Higgins, as a character, is extremely accommodating. And he always has the team’s best interests at heart. He’s hosted a massive Christmas dinner for the players on the team who couldn’t go back to their families; he brought in Dr. Sharon, the therapist who helped everyone on the team, especially Ted, work through their problems; and he took Will—the team’s clubhouse attendant—out to the jazz bar in Amsterdam.
And what do you know, Higgins is actually a very cool guy. The biggest evidence of this was in the episode “Sunflowers,” where we get to see Higgins lead his own jazz band. Swift is a musician himself, having just released a brand new album in April. While he didn’t have much of an input while filming, he did insist on one wardrobe omission.
Jeremy Swift, Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple.
Colin Hutton“It was a very personal episode for Brendan [Hunt, who wrote the episode, and plays Coach Beard on the show]. The only thing that I had an effect on was that Brendan wanted me to wear a jazz kind of hat. And I look like the late Benny Hill in all hats! So I went into a sort of little trailer and it had like, about 46 hats in. And I just tried some of them and decided I don’t want to wear any of them,” he says, says, laughinging.
“Brendan was a bit cheesed off about it. But he [agreed] in the end. I wanted to look a little bit cooler, you know, so that's what I ended up with,” he adds.
This growth of Higgins from being Rebecca’s meek underling to becoming a self-sufficient character of his own, is, Swift says, a result of the “domino effect of forgiveness.” Ted forgives Rebecca for trying to tear the club down in Season 11, which inevitably leads to Rebecca forgiving Higgins, and for dragging him into this toxic scheme she had hatched.
Another thing that really shows Higgins’ growth is that, in the past, he never would’ve brought up Ted’s recent incompetence as coach with Rebecca. But he does this season this season because in the end, he will always do what is in the team’s best interest.
Charlie Hiscock and Jeremy Swift.
Colin Hutton“You know, he has to tell some uncomfortable truths. That's what happens in sports. It's brutal. If a manager isn't working, it's a bit like politics, it usually ends up with some pain. It's like Julius Caesar or something. This kind of thing happens. So it's good to address it,” he says.
While speaking with Swift, I could see some similarities between the character and the actor, the most glaringly obvious one being the love for music—Thus Love and David Bowie being some of Swift’s favorites. But while Higgins might be the head of football operations on Ted Lasso, in real life, Swift isn’t really a sports guy at all. So obviously, I had to ask.
“This is really terrible,” he chuckles, “I’m often put together with Nick Mohammed [Nate Shelley] and James Lance [Trent Crimm]——and we’re not at all sporty.”
“I understand the pressure [of sports], because I'm a complete music nerd. And I follow bands and I know everything about them. I know in almost stalkerish detail about my favorite bands. But I never really got into football. I didn't have a sporty family—my mom and and dad were music teachers and into art and all that kind of thing,” he explains.
If pushed, however, he would stand with Middlesborough, followed by Liverpool, “just because I love Liverpool and Liverpudlians.”
As for what we can expect from Higgins as we hurtle towards the season finale, Swift says that Higgins will continue to do what he does best, which is ground his team and support them to the best of his abilities.
“I can't really give spoilers, but I think he is a very stable character that you don’t really worry about. He's a messenger, and he's there to buoy other people. And it's other people, the younger characters, who are still finding their way in the world—whose lives are oscillating, hither and thither. So, I would say that there are are no huge surprises, but he just continues to be supportive to the club, and be that father figure/accidental mentor that he is,” he says.
Or as Yoda would say, patience you must have, my young Padawan.
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