Kola Bokinni on Ted Lasso and Race Across the World

Kola Bokinni is one of the men fronting up Movember‘s brilliant new campaign, which is adding even more loveability to the man. He’s recently been entertaining us on-screen in Celebrity Race Across the World, where he and his cousin Mary Ellen came in second, narrowly beaten to the top of the Osorno Volcano in Chile. It marked the end of probably the most epic version of the series yet and one of its delights was seeing Kola in action, getting to know more about this insanely gifted actor who we know and love as Isaac, captain of Richmond in Ted Lasso – the hit Apple show which basically ‘won’ the Covid lockdown.

Speaking to The Book of Man on Zoom, he tells us now a bit more about growing up in Peckham and how his experiences shaped him.

“I was probably in the last generation that didn’t grow up with a smartphone,” he recalls, “You’d have to be, like, meet me here next to this lamppost at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. That had a profound impact on my childhood, I was very much an outdoors kid.

“We used to play a game called run outs, where we’d all go into teams and try to catch each other. There was no there was nothing else to do! The only thing we wanted to watch was Simpsons at 6 pm.

“But it was all character-building, I’m a very outgoing person. It was a situation where everyone in the area used to play with each other and there’s big characters, and you find out what kind of social group you click into. That’s a little bit lost these days and that’s why some of the children are going through quite a hard time because they haven’t had that time to alone to develop. They’ve been with the iPads, or on the PlayStation.”

For this lively, energetic kid, drama became a viable option when his first love, football, didn’t feel like a realistic way to forge a career. Not that acting is a much easier route, but things opened up, he made it into the Brit School and had an agent by the age of 16; “I felt invincible.” At which point things he hit some difficulties that bring some shame to the industry:

“I was told that my name was too ethnic. I changed it to Edward Loach. I actually did a movie under the moniker, Edward Loach. Because of all the bad advice that I’d been given, I kind of fell out of love with acting for a while, from the age of 17 or 18 all the way to 22.”

As fate would have it though, a route back presented itself, when a family friend asked him to audition for a play she wrote called the Soap Opera for the Royal Court. He bagged the role and something about the comedy unleashed a new love for acting: “I was myself and loud and the audience really loved it. I got signed to Curtis Brown because of that play.”

Ten years on, and he’s been excellent in the likes of Black Mirror and Top Boy, but it’s Ted Lasso that’s been the big one, and he won a Screen Actors Guild Award for playing Isaac in 2022.

“Ted Lasso came out at the perfect point in lockdown when everybody was just at home. Here comes this heartwarming, wholesome show, that’s like a warm hug in your living room when you needed it.”

Kola had a huge role in building Isaac as a character: “I had to develop the character of Isaac while shooting. That’s the kind of thing that Jason Sudeikis brings, that thinking on your feet improvisation side to it, where you know he wants you to add to what’s there. And if it’s good, it’s gonna be in there. It’s very organic. It’s a unique situation where we were acting with the writers, so it’s like, the better you are, the more they will write for you.”

It was a unique situation on that show, and for him, the appeal of being a jobbing actor is the variety:

“It’s not like you’re ever like, oh when I get to this point I’m going to feel like I’ve accomplished it. You’re always striving for that next step. This is the reason why I love the industry that I’m in because it’s forever changing. It’s not like any other job in the world because at one point you could be this person and then six months later you can be in a totally different place, being a different person.”

In terms of working in the industry that asked him to change his name early on, he thinks there are changes in representation both in front of and behind the camera, but he has some thoughts on how that plays out and can be seen in restrictive terms.

“It is a constant battle for representation and being seen for who you are. But I’d love there to be a world where you’re not classed as like, oh that’s black man, that’s a white man. But we’re far from that. It’s great that shows like Supacell are being made, but it should be a normal thing, it shouldn’t be like, well, that one made it through for that reason. It’s a little bit condescending. It kind of dilutes the work that they put in, it’s the same amount of work, probably even more hard work, than a ‘normal’ show.

If there was a show on TV with a majority white cast, there wouldn’t be a fuss.

Supa Cell is a great show. It’s not just a great black show.

But look, we’re a long way from me being told my name is too ethnic.”

Looking forward he says he takes things as they come rather than having any great career masterplan; “Since 2020, I just think it’s a blessing to be here and to be able to act and perform in any way.”

He’s NDA-ed up about his next roles but certainly did enjoy watching himself on Celebrity Race Across The World, though: “I’ve enjoyed watching me on the screen and being like, Oh, that’s what I’m like. This is what I do, you know? It’s a surreal thing. I look like I’m in deep thought and what I’m thinking about is something so blasé.

I’m probably thinking, I tied my shoes too tight, but I can’t be bothered to take them off – but I’m looking out into like the distance and then the camera catches you and it almost looks like I’m deep in thought about life. When it was just: ‘I haven’t changed my underwear in two days.’”

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