“Your Arms Look Incredible”: Brett Goldstein and Phil Dunster Have a Ted Lasso Reunion

After watching his Ted Lasso co-star Brett Goldstein’s new HBO stand-up special, The Second Best Night of Your life, Phil Dunster had a few observations, though none more salient than this: “You are someone who is so deeply, utterly, and cellularly obsessed with using the word cunt.” Indeed, Goldstein’s new hourlong special includes no small amount of profanity, but the 44-year-old actor, writer, and comedian, who’s won two Emmy Awards for his work on Ted Lasso, has hilarious insights to share about phone etiquette, Sesame Street, and being a Brit in America, too. And while most know him as Roy Kent, or as the creator of another hit Apple TV+ comedy, Shrinking, Goldstein has been performing stand-up comedy for longer than he’s been a global television star. It’s a medium, he says, that’s about cultivating a shared sense of depravity as much as it is about laughter. “If you laugh,” he told Dunster, “either I’m not insane and we all feel this way or I am insane, but it’s okay, you’re still going to accept me amongst the human community.” So, after watching, Dunster called up Goldstein from Los Angeles to ask about authorial intent, men’s fashion, and innovative sex positions.

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BRETT GOLDSTEIN: Hello, my boy.

PHIL DUNSTER: How are you, sweet boy?

GOLDSTEIN: All right. How are you, big boy?

DUNSTER: Good. You’re in New York, aren’t you?

GOLDSTEIN: I’m in New York, yes. Where are you, young man?

DUNSTER: I’m in the city of Los Angeles.

GOLDSTEIN: How are you getting on out there?

DUNSTER: Good, thus far. I’ve started wearing neckerchiefs. It’s not even that ironic. I quite enjoy it.

GOLDSTEIN: Do you know why this has happened? People keep telling me how hot it is in L.A., so it’s not like you need it for warmth. It seems like an active thing you want people to see you wearing.

DUNSTER: Yeah, I think there’s probably an element of wanting to be seen wearing a kerchief.

GOLDSTEIN: What is it you think a kerchief tells people?

DUNSTER: It’s a nice little accessory. It works with a shirt. I’m wearing a lot of button-down short-sleeved shirts in L.A. because it’s hotter than it is in London. So that, and before this I was watching golf.

GOLDSTEIN: I don’t think you’ve answered the question. I don’t want to miss the purpose of the statement.

DUNSTER: I don’t know. It would be only retrofitting to say that there’s a statement with it.

GOLDSTEIN: You know how Fight Club got co-opted by the wrong people? What if the statement inadvertently becomes something you hear and you go, “I really didn’t mean that. Can we stop it now?”

DUNSTER: Yes, true. But the thing is, the artist is still in charge of it. That’s the amazing thing about clothes. With film, it’s out there to be interpreted by others. As the creator of many TV shows, plays and now this wonderful stand-up show, The Second Best Night of Your Life, is that something that you worry about? That your intention no longer belongs to you, just like my neckerchief?

GOLDSTEIN: You’re filling me with dread. I have so many thoughts, and I’ll be honest with you, none of them are good. Still, I’m putting this stuff out in the world and intending it with love. I love David Lynch and he never ever explained himself. I would love to be like that. 

DUNSTER: Well, I would love to talk about your stand-up show.

GOLDSTEIN: I guess we should probably do a bit of that. Thank you for watching it.

DUNSTER: Often with these things it feels like there’s a moment when the interviewer says something that’s overly sanctimonious and bottom-kissy.

GOLDSTEIN: I’m hoping for that.

DUNSTER: Well, that’s going to come now.

GOLDSTEIN: Okay, great.

DUNSTER: As an actor, you’re someone who blends together the ugly bitterness of life while showing how hopeful and beautiful it is while constantly having a twinkle in your eye and tongue-in-cheek wit. The Second Best Night of Your Life is delightfully all of those things all at once. The thing that’s great about this show is that you never ever seem to be aware that you are doing that. All you are doing is telling jokes about how fit your mom is. All of those things happen underneath and I just think it’s wonderful. I don’t understand how you can find so many different parts of the human experience so funny, silly, naughty, sexy and horny and do it in so many different ways. It’s brilliant. 

GOLDSTEIN: That was very nice. It’s very kind.

DUNSTER: Nice watching you squirm, really. I tried to write stand up once and it’s impossibly hard to do without it feeling like you’re thinking, “I know what I’m trying to make people do.” It’s trying to make someone laugh. Whereas you feel like you’re just telling a story and then it happens that the audience finds it really funny.

GOLDSTEIN: Well, I don’t think that I have said this before in full disclosure, but I have obviously thought about it. I don’t think when I do stand-up, I’m saying, “Is this funny?” I think I’m saying, “Am I mad? Am I insane?”And if you laugh, either I’m not insane and we all feel this way or I am insane, but it’s okay, you’re still going to accept me amongst the human community.

DUNSTER: You are a Brit in America filming it. Was that a conscious thought?

GOLDSTEIN: I didn’t think about it being watched internationally. I was making an American special for HBO and I didn’t know if it would sell anywhere else. I don’t think I thought of it as going to an international audience. I just thought of it being American.

DUNSTER: Right. You’ve been doing stand-up for—

GOLDSTEIN: A long time, 17 or 18 years.

DUNSTER: Is this the first time that you’ve had to edit in retrospect?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes.

DUNSTER: How is that different from when you’ve been making a TV show?

GOLDSTEIN: I’ve never edited stand-up before. I found it very difficult. I toured the show for 14 months, so I know the stuff’s funny because I’ve proved it in many different rooms all across the country. But there’s a difference to how you edit a joke visually. From doing Lasso, there’s stuff that made us laugh so much on set that isn’t in the show because it doesn’t translate once it’s on a screen. That was a whole new skill I had to learn. Luckily, I had a very good editor, very good post-production people, and they all knew what they were doing. Wait, do you want to know this? ‘Cause I’m telling you anyway.

DUNSTER: I want to know it all. Take me behind the magician’s curtain.

GOLDSTEIN: We recorded two shows, an early show and a late show, with about half-an-hour between each show. You can pick a bit of both, but most people end up using most of one recording. If there were any mistakes in one, you can use the second show for that line. But I know how good the show is going to be when I’m offstage introducing the show by the sound of the cheer.

DUNSTER: Okay.

GOLDSTEIN: If they’re mental when you do the offstage bit, you know it’s going to be fun. With a tepid applause, you got to fucking really bring it because this might be a tough audience. I did a very slick version of the first show, and they were much better than I thought they’d be. I truly believe that standup is an unusual art form in that the audience cannot be passive. For it to work, the audience has to be actively engaged with it. A painting can exist without people looking at it. A dramatic play can happen with a silent audience. But with stand-up, if you have an audience sitting there with their arms folded going “impress me,” they will not have as good of a show no matter how great the comedian is. If you give me nothing, there’s very little to play with. It’s a back-and-forth. We’re in it together.

DUNSTER: Who would my neckerchief be if it was a standup comedian?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, it would be Jerry Sadowitz.

DUNSTER: Sure. But to be too serious for a second, there must be a really wonderful symbiosis you have with an audience.

GOLDSTEIN: It’s wonderful when they give it. You do feel truly like it’s a group, a communal experience. However, the point is, the first show was on the rails. Then the second show, I was really loosey-goosey, really fun, improvised loads and played around. It was great. We all said the second show would be the whole show. Then we got to the edit and watched these shows on screen, and the first show was better. 

DUNSTER: So, this show is called The Second Best Night of Your Life.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.

DUNSTER: Would you say that the first best night of your life was the evening that you found out that you were cast in the TV show Derek?

GOLDSTEIN: That was eclipsed by Sesame Street. That was the best day of my life.

DUNSTER: I feel ashamed to say this being a friend of yours, but I only realized yesterday that The Muppets and Sesame Street are two different things?

GOLDSTEIN: Well, they are and they aren’t.

DUNSTER: Do they have crossovers?

GOLDSTEIN: Yes.

DUNSTER: What are you getting out of being on Sesame Street as opposed to being on The Muppets?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, it’s the same. You see at the end of Second Best Night of Your Life, there’s a bit where I see the puppets and the look on my face is not faked. That’s not acting.

DUNSTER: You’re a dichotomy of a person, Brett. You are someone who is so deeply, utterly and cellularly obsessed with using the word cunt.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah.

DUNSTER: But you also have an affinity for Elmo. Does that feel like a conflict for you?

GOLDSTEIN: I think it sits in the same place. Ted Lasso itself shreds that. What’s weird about Ted Lasso is people watch it with their family. They say it’s a family show. But we say “fuck” all the time, there’s cunnilingus in it, there’s suicide in it. But the intent is love. I would like to believe that when I say “cunt” all the time, it’s coming from a place of love.

DUNSTER: Listen, I’d say two minutes of every single phone call is you saying that word to me. I know it’s from a place of love and you are probably single-handedly, unapologetically flying the flag for the cunt club. It’s impressive. I’d say The Second Best Night of Your Life is incredibly funny, it’s such a wonderful insight into your life, but fundamentally it is a vehicle for flying the flag of cunt.

GOLDSTEIN: A cunt vehicle. You did a bit of stand-up, didn’t you? I think you could be a stand-up.

DUNSTER: I did some scripted words in front of people whilst I was standing up. I don’t know if comedy came into it much.

GOLDSTEIN: Well, agree to disagree. You’re a natural.

DUNSTER: I think it’s one of those things where you go, “I’ve got a couple of funny stories.” But there is a deftness of touch, which I have learned. It’s the same thing with writing music; there is just a hard-earned quality to understanding how to do it without feeling like you are trying, a skill I haven’t learned.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, you don’t really write it. It’s more like a premise or an idea. It’ll be a one-word thing and then I’ll improvise it on stage until it becomes a bit.

DUNSTER: Things have been going well for you. You are the creator of Emmy-nominated Shrinking.

GOLDSTEIN: Co-creator.

DUNSTER: You are twice an Emmy winner for [playing] Roy Kent. You’re doing all right. The guy’s got to be fairly flush. Why is it that you are still shopping at Target for your T-shirt and trousers?

GOLDSTEIN: When I was about 12, I realized, “Hey, I look okay in a black t-shirt and jeans.” I haven’t got any more room in my brain to think about clothes, so I’ll just stick with this. I’ve got lots of things to do. Listen, maybe your neckerchief will have people writing in going, “Are you kidding me? That is the height of fashion.’ And I’d go, “Hands up, I don’t know anything.”

DUNSTER: You could probably get one for your next HBO special because it’s so good.

GOLDSTEIN: Thank you.

DUNSTER: Or if you get into injecting heroin, you can always just wrap that around your arm.

GOLDSTEIN: That was my retirement plan.

DUNSTER: Also, your arms look incredible in this special.

GOLDSTEIN: Finally! Thank you.

DUNSTER: I’m surprised that more stand-up comedians don’t have absolute belting arms like you.

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, you’re holding a thing the whole time.

DUNSTER: Has it now reached a point where it’s a bit of a hindrance. Are you struggling to get the microphone near your face?

GOLDSTEIN: Yeah, because they’re so big.

DUNSTER: Good arms.

GOLDSTEIN: Thanks, man.

DUNSTER: In The Second Best Night of Your Life, you talk about 69’ing.

GOLDSTEIN: Yes.

DUNSTER: What do you think are some other sex numbers that might be usable?

GOLDSTEIN: In the beginning of the show, I explain what an 11 is and what a 16 is, but I think you could have an 88, which is two people doing ass to ass. What do you think about that?

DUNSTER: In my mind, eight is top down, someone cross-legged actually.

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, like two yogis.

DUNSTER: Yeah, two yogis kissing.

GOLDSTEIN: Yogis doing ass to ass, yes.

DUNSTER: Great gifts. This is a basic question, but it’s always an interesting question. Do you remember the worst gig you’ve ever had and did you have rotten tomatoes thrown at you?

GOLDSTEIN: There’s a lot and I have talked about them before. I do remember them. Do you remember the one bad comment you saw on a review somewhere after reading 500 good reviews? Of course, you remember everything about it. So yeah, I remember all my bad gigs.

DUNSTER: Did somebody say something or was it that no one said anything?

GOLDSTEIN: The thing with stand-up is, if an audience is booing you, which has happened, that’s pretty good because that means that they think you can handle it. When an audience thinks, “This is so bad that we can’t even boo because he’ll probably die,” well, that’s death.

DUNSTER: Okay.

GOLDSTEIN: A pitying silence is the worst. It feels like dying on stage because you come to connect with people and when it doesn’t work it’s like, “Oh my god. Am I even here? Do I exist? What is happening?” And what’s so weird about stand up is that it’s so objective. If someone were to go, “You are not funny, and no one’s laughing,” it’s like, “Yeah, I can’t argue. I can’t say last night they laughed loads because right now, yeah, I’m a ghost that isn’t funny.” You can get laughs in lots of ways. But for me it’s about, and I hate to say this, a genuine feeling of connection.

DUNSTER: Final question. If your house was on fire, would you save: A, all of your Ted Lasso memorabilia, or B, your family and all of your loved ones, or C, the ability to use the word “cunt”?

GOLDSTEIN: Oh, god. I really can’t, Phil.

DUNSTER: Fair enough. It’s been really lovely.

GOLDSTEIN: Thank you, Phil. You were a wonderful interviewer. I hope that the next year brings you joy and not anger.

DUNSTER: Thank you. I find this is quite hard to do with sincerity.

GOLDSTEIN: You did so well. I love you very much.