This post was originally published on this site.
Apple TV
Anthony Head broke out on TV as Rupert Giles, a kindly father figure in The WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but one of his final roles was the diabolical billionaire Rupert Mannion in “Ted Lasso.” While the Apple TV comedy is a light-hearted watch, Head’s favorite moment from the show was arguably Mannion’s cruelest scene.
“Ted Lasso” — which plays on the fish-out-of-water mismatch of Jason Sudeikis’ titular American coach leading a British soccer team — earned critical acclaim in part because of the emotional character arcs of its supporting cast — such as club owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham). A major part of her story is about recovering from the split from her ex-husband, Mannion.
Head revealed his favorite scene to Subjectify Media when asked if he knew where his character ends up, saying: “No, which I love. I love that, because you want to try not to play where you’re headed. You want to play in the moment and how you deal with the moment. I mean one of my favorite scenes in the first season was with Hannah when I told her about having a child on the way, having not let her have a child. That was such a wonderfully emotional scene and it was just so vile — just whispering in her ear.”
Anthony Head says Rupert Mannion’s cruelty is for revenge
Apple TV+
In “Ted Lasso” Season 1, Rebecca Welton intends to run AFC Richmond into the ground just to spite her ex-husband, since he loved the club so much as its former owner. She’s playing the long game, whereas Rupert Mannion takes great pleasure in targeted cruelty whenever he sees Welton.
“The football club … was very special to him, and she somehow managed to manipulate it so that’s what she got from him,” Anthony Head continued. “So yeah, he would enjoy making her suffer in any way because she’s no longer on his radar, she’s no longer anything that he loves so therefore he will be very happy to destroy her.”
The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star said that he often watched his work back to see what worked and what didn’t, and he was surprised by himself on “Ted Lasso.”
“Occasionally, I’ll see something and have no recollection of shooting it,” he said. “Like, ‘Wow, I don’t even know who I am, who that is, I’m not looking at me.'”