Actor Brett Goldstein has said he “was depressed” prior to the success of Ted Lasso and that a gratitude journal “changed him”.
The British actor and comedian, 46, has reprised his role as Roy Kent, the former player-turned-assistant coach, in the fourth series of the hit Apple TV series about a Midwestern American football coach, Ted Lasso, played by Jason Sudeikis, who is hired to manage the fictional football club AFC Richmond despite having no experience in the sport.
The show was an instant success when it first hit screens in 2020 and earned the most Emmy nominations ever received by a first-season comedy – with Goldstein winning the award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy in 2021 and 2022.
Prior to the success of the show, Goldstein said he struggled with his mental health and saw a therapist who encouraged him to write in a gratitude journal, where he had to list at least 10 things he was grateful for.
Speaking to Men’s Health UK, he said: “I was depressed.
“Every day she (the therapist) made me write a list of 10 things that happened that day that I was grateful for.
“In the beginning, when you’re so, so depressed, it’s like, ‘Nothing’. But you have to put 10 in. ‘The sun was up.’ That’s one. You start so small. But by day 30 of doing that, you’ve started training your brain to look for the positive, and I could write a list of 100 things. I’m the luckiest guy in the world! Everything’s f****** amazing!’”
Weeks into journaling Goldstein said he felt a noticeable shift in the way he perceived the world and that despite still having “darker days”, being able to appreciate the smaller moments in life continues to help.
He said: “It really had changed me, built new synapses, whatever it is. You can look for the good. It’s a f****** skill – or, something you have to work at.
“I don’t always achieve it. I still have darker days. But gratitude helps.”
Goldstein said although he was not raised in a household where people said you should not show your emotions, he still felt the pressures of masculinity and holding things in.
He said: “I definitely grew up with the feelings of, ‘Men aren’t supposed to show emotions.’ But then I got older, and my experience with women was whenever I was accidentally vulnerable it went very well.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’ve been learning the wrong lessons.’”
“My trainer in New York, he was a professional bodybuilder and there are pictures of him on the wall in amazing shape. He said, ‘Men love it. Women hate it.’
“There are all these things where I think most people don’t know what they’re doing, they have been behaving how they think they’re meant to behave.”
Goldstein is also known for starring in the rom-com Office Romance alongside pop star Jennifer Lopez and 2024’s All Of You and has appeared in the series Shrinking.
The full interview with Brett Goldstein can be read in the September issue of Men’s Health UK, on sale now.
