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How 'Nope's Jordan Peele inspired the most viral moment from this season of 'Ted Lasso'
That hysterical bike scene between Roy and Jamie on 'Ted Lasso' has some real-life roots that involve Jordan Peele.
The wheels were turning in Brendan Hunt's head when the Ted Lasso co-creator and actor was working on that viral Season 3 bike scene between characters Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt. The fun moment is actually inspired by a bike incident of his own with Jordan Peele, creator of the Universal Pictures sci-fi horror film Nope.
In the Ted Lasso scene, which occurs in Season 3, Episode 5, Jamie (Phil Dunster) gets ahold of a pair of bikes so that he and Roy (Brett Goldstein) could set out for a ride around Amsterdam in search of windmills. While Jamie's paying for the bikes, Roy reveals that he never learned how to ride one because his grandfather died before he was able to teach him. After Jamie and the guy who sold him the bikes face each other and erupt in laughter, a sweet but hysterical scene unfolds in which Jamie teaches Roy how to ride as the grumpy assistant coach repeatedly falls over and then tries to run over Jamie.
Hunt, who not only co-developed the Apple TV+ comedy-drama but also stars as Coach Beard, told Uproxx in a recent interview that this fan-favorite scene was partially influenced by one of his own nights out in Amsterdam. "We knew we wanted to have the two of them on a bike ride late at night," Hunt told the entertainment site. "That was kind of the start of it. And then we wanted that to make sense and we wanted it to be part of some kind of escapade. They couldn’t just decide to get bikes. There had to be a reason behind it. So those were the steps to it. And I think it might have been [co-creator and main star] Jason [Sudeikis] who came up with the Butch Cassidy element of it all, which is a wonderful extra layer, but it is also connected to one very specific memory I have from Amsterdam.
"We’d had a big party at my theater [Boom Chicago] and I was biking home with my girlfriend along the Lijnbaansgracht [a canal in Amsterdam]," Hunt continued to Uproxx. "And that was when Jordan Peele was in the cast. And Jordan lived closer than I did, and he didn’t like biking very much, so he was walking home. But I passed him and it’s like three o’clock in the morning, 'Jordan, let me ride you the rest of the way home!' Because riding on the back of someone’s wheel and just grabbing someone by the waist and biking along was common practice. And he said, 'Brendan, no, no.'"
But Hunt insisted that the filmmaker and writer behind horror films like Get Out, Us, Candyman (2021) and Nope hop on. "'Jordan. Jordan, let me take you home. Come on. Jordan Peele, I insist you get on my bike right now!,'” Hunt says he pleaded. "And he did. And I remember it clear as day. 'Okay, you good? You good? Okay. Woo.' (Uproxx explains that Hunt fell over in his chair to depict what happened on his bike that night.) And Jordan landed on his back and we both died laughing admitting defeat. I just got back on my bike and biked away. 'See you tomorrow, buddy!' 'All right, later!'”
Thankfully, they both lived to laugh and tell the story and Ted Lasso fans can especially thank them for it.
Check out this behind-the-scenes look at Jordan Peele's Nope from Universal Pictures!
