Interview: Jodi Balfour on Getting to Play Jack Danvers on ‘Ted Lasso’

In its third season, Ted Lasso has followed a new career journey for Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), which finds her in unfamiliar territory when it comes to the backend pieces of running a business. She’s also had the opportunity to meet Jack Danvers (Jodi Balfour), her company’s major funder, and the two of them have started a whirlwind romance.

Awards Radar had the chance to speak with Balfour, who previously guest-starred as Jackie Kennedy on The Crown, in addition to other major roles on series like For All Mankind, about joining this massive popular show and what she could relate to about Jack:

“Certainly not her venture capitalist skills, I’ll tell you that much. I really had to verse myself to the extent that I could, with podcasts and chatting to friends who are even remotely involved in that world. Nothing about it is relatable to my life. But I suppose it was fun to use her innate confidence and willingness and ability to take up space and be who she is. I have that in me somewhere, fairly buried, it seems most of the time. It was really fun to bring that part of myself forward. I’d say that, really, because, truly, everything else about her couldn’t be further from my real life.”

She also lamented the fact that she didn’t actually get to share scenes with most of the show’s stars:

“Of course, I read all the scripts, and so I was very invested in all the storylines, but, no, we were so siloed. I’m trying to think – the first episode I’m in, episode four, I go to the match, and so there’s that fun scene to do with Jeremy and Hannah and the others. But otherwise, yeah, it was really Juno-fest for me, which I’m not complaining about. She’s such an incredible actor to work opposite and person to hang out with. But yeah, it was bizarre. I saw Brett a fair amount, because he’s on set a bunch, because a producer on the show and a writer on the show, and obviously Jason. But we were in our own little bubble.”

Watch the full conversation below.

New episodes of Ted Lasso debut weekly on Wednesdays on Apple TV+.