Speaking out in your work place, where you have constantly been bullied by your peers or seniors can be rough. Dealing with such behaviour shatters your self-confidence and makes you climb back into yourself. Something similar happened with Nate on Apple TV Plus’ award-winning series Ted Lasso, led by Jason Sudeikis. In the show, Nate (Nick Mohammed) is a regular joe, a kitman, who is never respected. His skin colour, so very different from those around him, and his short height coupled with that soft, timid voice doesn’t help things. But one fine day, Ted Lasso happens to him (as he happened to all of us around the same moment).
- Advertisement -
Little by little, Ted discovers, thanks to his own willingness to be around people, how passionate Nate is actually about football, and then, before a big game, he lets him talk to the boys, who have seemingly started to warm up to him. But were they ready to take notes from him? Will they, professional players, allow a kitman to tell them a thing or two about how they can improve their game? Ted nudges Nate to open up after the latter passes him some notes on how the team could perform better, in the seventh episode of the first season. Speak to them, Ted says to Nate. What happens next, was somewhat predictable, but no less magical for that.
Nate begins addressing the room at first, and then one by one, each player, and their shortcomings. Finally he has to confront their captain, the always-moody and angry Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). The two hand-held cameras put them up against each other — Roy looming tall in front of an obviously nervous Nate. He snatches Nate’s notes from him, crumples and throws them into a corner: “Don’t read it, say it to my face,” he almost seemed to challenge Nate. And Nate does. It ends up making Roy angry, but in a good way, as he had just been reminded by Nate that his aggression, if channelled intelligently into the game, was actually a good thing. Roy upturns a desk, roars and leaves the room, leading the rest of his teammates behind him. Ted smiles his warm smile, Nate is confused but happy. After all, he has been seen and heard for the first time, by the people he spends most of his waking hours with.
- Advertisement -
Speaking about the roast scene, Nick Mohammed told Variety that the whole sequence was a big moment for his character, a ‘turning point.’
“Nate has started to find his voice, he is only brave enough to speak to Ted… I read it and loved it, as I didn’t have many interactions with the group. I was excited and nervous about it too. They are such a great bunch of individuals and we have genuine friendship between us,” the actor told Variety.
- Advertisement -
For those of you who follow the show, you are already familiar with how Nate eventually turns out to be, but during, and until that big roast scene ended, things were pretty special. For Nate, and us, the audience.
