‘Ted Lasso’ Star Phil Dunster is Cheering For Jamie Tartt As Much as You Are

The first thing you realize when you talk to Ted Lasso star Phil Dunster is that he is not Jamie Tartt. The 31-year-old British actor’s hair is neither highlighted with bottle blonde streaks nor is it long enough to pull back with a headband. On the Monday Decider Zoomed with him, Dunster was sporting a chic, pastel blue, and beige striped knit polo rather than an influencer-approved puffer jacket. Oh, and he speaks warmly with the cadence of an actor trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and not the brogue of a football-playing ruffian from Manchester.

In fact, it’s Phil Dunster’s accent that really gives up the game. He sounds nothing like AFC Richmond Striker Jamie Tartt, which is something that Ted Lasso fans keep discovering to their shock — and Dunster’s utter delight.

“It’s a huge compliment. I’m very happy when that happens,” Dunster tells Decider. “It’s with a lot of love that I found that [Jamie Tartt]’s voice.”

The voice he uses on screen is “an ode” to the rapper Aitch and his own Mancunian agent, “who has a lot of sass.” But once fans get past their surprise at his real voice, it seems there’s only one issue they have with the Apple TV+ star. “Really, the only disappointing thing is when they see me play football. They’re like, ‘You ain’t as good as that.'”

There’s nothing disappointing about Phil Dunster in Ted Lasso Season 3, though. While the jury’s still out on the Apple TV+ hit’s latest season, Dunster has proven himself as a consistent source of joy for critics who keep singling both his performance and Jamie’s arc as season-high points. NPR’s Linda Holmes wrote that Jamie and Roy’s storyline was her “favorite little story nub” of the season so far, The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg noted that “Dunster continues to make Jamie’s hero turn more believable than it should be,” and LaineyGossip’s Sarah Marrs called Dunster’s performance “OUTSTANDING,” in all caps. Ted Lasso Season 3 is when both Phil Dunster and Jamie Tartt seem to be at their best.

“You know, I’m cheering for him as well. I’m like, ‘Don’t be a dick, man. Be the good guy.’ Every now and then he does.”

Phil Dunster on Jamie Tartt’s growth

It’s a pleasant surprise particularly because when we first met Jamie Tartt all the way back in Ted Lasso Season 1, he was AFC Richmond’s resident enfant terrible. Tartt was the team’s leading scorer on the pitch and he used that knowledge to bully teammates and then kit man Nate (Nick Mohammed). He frequently came to blows with the team’s grumpy veteran Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and was off and on and off again with effervescent girlfriend Keeley Jones (Juno Temple).

Over the past few seasons, fans have watched as Jamie grew by leaps and bounds. He returned to AFC Richmond, determined to be a team player, and eventually made his peace with Keeley’s romance with Roy. In fact, a pivotal moment in Ted Lasso Season 2 came when Roy kicked Jamie’s abusive father out of the locker room and enveloped the younger man in a hug.

Cut to Ted Lasso Season 3, and Jamie Tartt is more mature than ever before, leading the locker room through tough breaks and forming a friendship with Roy. Dunster’s favorite part of Jamie’s three-season journey, though? “The haircuts, probably,” he said, referring to the character’s scene-stealing coifs.

“Look, as an actor, you want to have those arcs. It’s kind of been a dream really this last season, in particular, where we’ve seen him learn all these lessons and then we get to see him put them into practice,” Dunster said, before adding that what he loves about the writing on Ted Lasso is that it puts characters — be they Jamie Tartt, Roy Kent, or Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca Welton, through “nonlinear growth.”

“Whoever it is, just because they’re going through a learning curve, just because they have the lesson that they’ve learned, it doesn’t mean that they always impart it in the best way. It’s pride that gets in the way, it’s fear that makes them act in a certain way.

“But I think more and more we see Jamie when there’s a crossroads, he goes, ‘I’m gonna do the thing that I know is right.’ And I think that that’s been a really lovely, lovely thing,” he added. “You know, I’m cheering for him as well. I’m like, ‘Don’t be a dick, man. Be the good guy.’ Every now and then he does.”

Perhaps Jamie’s growth has been best marked in his relationship with Roy Kent. The once enemies have spent Season 3 commiserating over their failed relationships with Keeley, opening up about pivotal childhood memories, and riffing off each other in hilarious set pieces.

“I love the Roy/Jamie stuff. I think that’s the other great love story in the show,” Brett Goldstein told Decider when we interviewed him earlier this year. “And Phil is very funny.”

Dunster says that while it seems Roy and Jamie would be the last people who’d want to be vulnerable with one another, the foundation of their newfound bromance is in their long-standing rivalry.

“They’ve always had that frenemy dynamic and it means that there is an intimacy within that,” Dunster said. “Like the fact that they choose to use all of their most inventive swear words to each other. Like they’re putting the effort in, they’re putting the time in with each other. So there is like a level of intimacy in a weird sort of way between them.”

The intimacy between Roy and Jamie has been both emotional and physical in Ted Lasso Season 3. The fourth episode opens with Roy showing up at Jamie’s house bright and early at 4 AM to train the plateauing footballer, only to find an exhausted Jamie still in his very unique pajamas: t-shirt on top, nothing on the bottom.

“It’s a really funny, stupid image of someone ‘Winnie the Pooh’-ing at 4 AM and I love it.  I just love silly little moments like that,” Dunster said. “Roy is there and he’s serious and he’s offering up this thing: ‘I’m here and we’re going to do this thing,’ with swear words. And then Jamie just has his bum out and it’s just really funny. It’s like really great character progression between these two. I just love it.”

Goldstein, who also wrote the episode, joked with Decider that he was filled with “delight and excitement” when he realized Dunster would have to drop trow for the scene. “What day don’t I see Phil Dunster’s bum?” Goldstein said laughing. “You know, I mean, like, name a day of the week that doesn’t happen.”

“Yeah, it’s true. I mean, he doesn’t request it,” Dunster quipped before clarifying that he had no problem bearing his butt in the scene. “It’s funny. I’ve had my bum out quite a lot in my career.”

In fact, Dunster went so far as to reveal he was ” very, very honored” to be asked to do the bit as he has such implicit trust in the team that series star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis has assembled. Dunster learned later in Season 3 that the trust he has in Ted Lasso‘s writers goes both ways.

In Episode 6, “Sunflowers,” the team decamps to Amsterdam for a “friendly” match. Roy and Jamie spent a wholesome day together that culminates in the younger man teaching his older mentor how to literally ride a bicycle. It’s pure physical comedy genius, with Jamie at his most patient and Roy at his most frustrated. Naturally, the moment immediately went viral.

According to Dunster, Roy and Jamie’s bicycle sojourn was one of the few comic beats in Ted Lasso that weren’t wholly scripted. Series co-creator Joe Kelly was on hand to help suggest jokes, but by and large, Dunster and Goldstein were trusted to let their characters play. Dunster, in particular, was moved by the faith the production had in him.

“I don’t know, I mean, ‘honored’ is probably the wrong word. It’s a bit heavy, but it’s like I felt so great that I was trusted with an improv moment like that.”

For Dunster, getting to improv that sequence felt like the culmination of three seasons of hard work from both the Ted Lasso cast and writers. “As an actor, that’s the thing you want. You want to feel that sense of control. You know, the order in the chaos.”

Amid the lads’ Amsterdam bike adventure, Jamie reveals to Roy that Amsterdam is a place that reminds him of both of his parents: his father’s toxic parenting and his mother’s stalwart love. It’s yet another glimpse at the psychological forces driving the young football star. Dunster said that the challenge for him is finding a way to make revelations like that feel real while not “overdramatizing” them. Or “over-egging the pudding,” he said before jokingly asking if we even have that phrase in the USA. “You know the vibe: putting too much beef in the jerky.”

Aphorisms aside, Dunster sees these sorts of moments as “our job,” adding that, “to be able to justify any of the darker bits or any look, any line, any vibe that a character has… It’s your job to be able to justify it from a place of ‘#truth.’ And I think that it’s been really fun to find the darker things, the darker elements, the trauma with a lowercase ‘t’ that is a part of anybody’s life, these events that people go through that inform who they become.”

Over the course of three seasons, Jamie has become one of the emotional anchors of Ted Lasso, supporting his teammates and friends through thick and thin. Meanwhile, Dunster himself has become something of a cheerleader for his costars, most of whom have either received Emmy nominations or multiple Emmys themselves. Dunster is the odd Ted Lasso star who hitherto hasn’t been recognized by the Academy, but he doesn’t mind.

“I think at this point, I think it’s probably cooler not to be nominated for an Emmy if you’re working on Ted Lasso because it feels like everyone else has,” Dunster said with a chuckle — but he’s serious. “No look, I mean, this is the thing. This is the level that the bar is at. It’s so ridiculously high that, I mean — What other show … where it’s been so, like, amazingly received? [Awards are] not the reason you do it. You just want to be doing interesting roles. You want to be working on a show that people like.”

“I think at this point, I think it’s probably cooler not to be nominated for an Emmy if you’re working on Ted Lasso.”

Phil Dunster on being one of the only Ted Lasso stars without an Emmy nod.

Don’t believe him? Dunster got visibly emotional recalling just how special it was for him to see his frequent scene partner Brett Goldstein take home the Emmy twice for playing Roy Kent, calling it “a huge thing.” And while he supports all of his cast and crewmates, he adds there was “a deep-seated joy” watching Goldstein’s wins.

“You know like when you feel it down in like your tummy? I just was very happy to see that,” he said before teasing that the real win for him is working with Goldstein on moments like the Amsterdam bicycle scene and “some bits that are coming up, which I’m really excited about.”

So while Ted Lasso fans might want to see Dunster nab an Emmy nomination and get his flowers, for the actor, that’s not his goal. “The stuff that we see on the show…that’s the thing that I love to do.” Luckily for Dunster, that’s exactly the stuff Ted Lasso fans love, too.

Ted Lasso streams Wednesdays on Apple TV+.