‘Ted Lasso’s’ Sam Richardson Shares His Favorite Role of All Time

Actor and comedian Sam Richardson has had a lot of roles over his career. In the Netflix sketch comedy I Think You Should Leave, he hosts competitions for babies and buff boys, and in Veep he plays the earnest but bumbling campaign aide Richard Splett. In the upcoming Scooby-Doo spinoff Velma, he’ll take on the role of Shaggy. And in Ted Lasso, he plays the ruthless billionaire Edwin Akufo. But none of those roles are Richardson’s favorite.

I spoke with Richardson on the red carpet at the 2022 BoxLunch Holiday Gala, which honored the national food bank network Feeding America. BoxLunch is a pop culture retailer that donates a portion of its sales to people experiencing food insecurity.

“My favorite role was playing Sam in Detroiters, with my best friend Tim Robinson,” Richardson told me. “I was shooting it in my home town, and it’s a show I wrote myself. Writing and acting in it was incredible—every idea you have, you can put on camera in some way. You’re the first and last voice, which is great.”

Detroiters tells the story of Sam Duvet (Richardson) and Tim Cramblin (Robinson), who run an ad agency making commercials for local businesses in Detroit. The series premiered on Comedy Central in 2017 and ran for two seasons.

“It was great, getting to do [the show] in Detroit, getting to be a bit of a hometown hero,” Richardson said. “It was great to support the city and bring art to it in a way that was outfacing to the rest of the world.”

Richardson also recently wrapped production on Season 2 of The Afterparty, a murder mystery centering on the afterparty of a high school reunion. Although no release date has been announced yet, Richardson said that the new season should drop “pretty soon.”

(featured image: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for BoxLunch)