There’s No Place Like Richmond: “Ted Lasso” DP Bella Gonzales on Bringing Ted Home Again
Fans were thrilled when a fourth season of Ted Lasso arrived on Apple TV. After three years, the show picked back up a few years later, but right where Ted (Jason Sudeikis) landed: at home in Kansas. But even Ted’s relentless good nature can’t mask that all is not well in the heartland. The former coach is working at a grocery store. His mother is selling off her Richmond gear at a yard sale. And worst of all, Ted’s come all this way for his son Henry, but is mostly powerless when Henry gets benched by his high school soccer coach and in trouble at school for subversive song lyrics. It’s into this doldrums-laden scenario that Keeley (Juno Temple), Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), and Leslie (Jeremy Swift) arrive with a job offer: come back to Richmond to coach the club’s women’s team.
The season opener has a gossamer quality; we know Ted will wake up from this strange American dream and return to Richmond. But he just can’t get there without hemming, hawing, and getting his English colleagues addicted to Kansas barbecue first, a very Coach Lasso song-and-dance that gives the season opener cinematographer Bella Gonzales time to convey just how much Ted has become a stranger in his own land. Gonzales, who previously worked with Ted Lasso director Declan Lowney on The Big Door Prize, was tapped to bring an American sensibility to Episode 1, a process she and the crew embarked on by visiting Children’s Mercy Hospital and other Kansas City locations close to Sudeikis’s heart. As the episode developed, the cinematographer consulted with London-based DPs David Rom and Vanessa Whyte to ensure England and the US didn’t feel too disjointed, and in the end, it’s a relief but not a surprise that Ted, with family in tow, is headed back to the UK.
With the show’s return a win with critics and fans alike, we spoke with the cinematographer about her approach to what turned out to be Apple TV’s biggest launch ever.
What were some non-negotiables from prior seasons that you wanted to keep?
I wanted to keep the same camera, keep the same lenses, because I felt like that was an important part of the visual DNA. There are so many other things that can alter atmosphere, mood, tone, texture. Camera placement is very similar—single camera motivated, eye level, psychological camera work. The camera really tells the relationship between actors in the frame, whether or not Rebecca and Ted are getting on, or Roy and Keeley, if they’re dating or not.
How did that inform your process?
I studied where the camera was, the height of the camera, and then when it changed, when it went handheld, why did it matter? What does it feel like? What did Ted’s anxiety feel like from the previous seasons? And how do we move that forward? Because there’s been a big time shift. I let the lighting be inspired by the scripts, the scenery around me, the feeling of actually having those English actors in American sun during Kansas City summer.
The setting also feels more ethereal than London. Was that part of the intention?
Declan and I talked a lot about The Wizard of Oz. There’s the parallel of going back to Kansas. It’s unfamiliar people going on a journey. I wanted it to feel like we were going from one familiar story to another, though we haven’t seen Kansas. But we have so much access to what Kansas is, from Ted. The kindness, these over-the-top sayings—that is where he came from. I wanted to make it feel really storybook, dreamy, and soft. But I wanted the sun to feel hard and to feel the dust in the air. I wanted it to feel purely Americana and inspired by past photographers like Robert Frank.
How did the earnestness of this episode inform how you shot it?
I work out of the country most of the time. If not out of the country, I work out of the state. There is this element of coming back home, but home doesn’t feel completely whole. That’s something I really latched on to, along with the themes of fatherhood and pride and purpose, because that’s Ted’s journey, right? I tried to approach it from understanding what it is to feel foreign in your own space. We also tried to show that in the blocking. In that diner scene, everyone else is settled in the booth, and he’s ready to leave at any moment.
That diner scene is pivotal.
Jason comes to the set with those psychological decisions, and he’s so generous with how he’s feeling, how the character’s feeling. I also wanted it to be entertaining and feel like a warm hug, because that’s what Ted Lasso did for me. The show is so special because it explores real life, the struggle, but also the beautiful joy of friendship and growing as a human.
Did it take a lot to get the diner scene where you wanted it?
It was our day one scene one, which is a beautiful thing because it was really, truly the moment that they actually get to spend time together and catch up, but it’s also still the same. We let that inform it. Besides some intermittent thunder storms, it was pretty smooth. As a DP, I knew Apple was going to release this first look of the scene the day after we shot it. There was a little bit of pressure to make sure that it was a recognizable image, but also that you know we’re not in Richmond anymore.
What were some references for the episode, besides The Wizard of Oz?
Casablanca is obviously massive for the plane scene, but it’s a working airport, so no fog and beautiful noir. But I love that it’s a goodbye and a hello. As far as references go, the script was so good at telling us what it wanted that I really tried to make it unique in its own way, while always asking myself: what was the language of the show, and how would they have done this otherwise? Why would it be different here? I had just come from out of the country. My senses were ultra-sensitive to what was different and special [here]. I took that and tried to make it into a quality.
What was it like working on a season that focuses on the women’s side of the sport?
Declan has many DPs that he works with. I feel like I was there for a reason, not only because I’m going to get to the heart of the story, but I also felt very honored to be a woman starting off a season that is about women and women’s sports. And it makes me so happy. To be at KPKC Stadium for the scout, I felt this pride that I can’t really describe to anyone. I didn’t know that women, even in their home stadiums, didn’t necessarily have changing rooms. There’s something about selling out games, but not having a space of their own—I felt like it [connected] with what Ted was going through. Everything is full circle.
Featured image: Tanya Reynolds and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV.
