Brendan Hunt, co-star of ‘Ted Lasso,’ brings his one-man show to the city that shaped him

Things finally fell into place for Brendan Hunt after a fateful meeting with Paul McCartney.

This spring, Hunt, a Chicago native best known for his role as Coach Beard on the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso,” brings a deeply personal performance to the city where he started.

The production, titled “The Movement You Need: An Evening with Brendan Hunt,” takes inspiration from a line in the Beatles’ song “Hey Jude.” The 85-minute one-man show runs April 19 through May 10 at the Steppenwolf Theatre; fellow Chicago native Ashley Rodbro directs.

Based on his upbringing and his complicated relationship with his late mother, rooted in their shared love of The Beatles, the show is framed by something Hunt had been hoping for his entire life: meeting McCartney, which happened by chance in 2022.

By that point, the solo show had already begun to take shape. The idea had been percolating in his mind for several years after his mother’s death.Hunt, 53, is an alum of The Second City and Boom Chicago. He said the initial idea for the show blossomed the moment he became a father. Hunt’s oldest son, born in 2021, entered the world as a Beatles song began playing. “I don’t want to get into [that] too much because that’s a big moment in the show. But after that, I sort of realized The Beatles tend to show up in my life in a bunch of ways,” Hunt said in an interview.

Everything snapped into focus when Hunt’s longtime friend and colleague Jason Sudeikis invited him to tag along to one of McCartney’s rehearsals. They were already in England, busy filming “Ted Lasso,” when they trekked to Wembley Stadium to hear McCartney prepare for a tribute concert for Taylor Hawkins, the late Foo Fighters drummer.

Hunt, not wanting to scare McCartney off by gushing over him like every other starstruck fan, kept most of his thoughts to himself. But the “awkwardness” of that encounter “ended up offering an opportunity to make the show better,” Hunt said.

So the next summer, he workshopped “The Movement You Need” at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in front of a crowd of about 30 people.“The show itself is so little about meeting Paul McCartney,” Hunt said. “But the setup … and the way it sort of comes back around at the end made the show seem way more finished than it actually was, way earlier than it was,” Hunt said. “After that very first one, I was like, "Oh, oh s— ." It was just immediately different.”

After the success of the Hollywood Fringe Show, Hunt’s performance made its New York City premiere at the SoHo Playhouse. Now, it’s coming to Steppenwolf, which Hunt says he has admired since his days at Illinois State University, where he got a degree in theater.

Having a one-man show at a venue he’s revered since his college days is “pretty f—ing exciting,” Hunt said.

“I just have such reverence for that place. I hope that they’re not in such shambles that they would want someone such as me to be on their stage for a while,” he said jokingly.

Hunt said “The Movement You Need” will have a bit of “Ted Lasso” DNA baked into it. “We’re able to get into sort of emotional stuff, but then — just when you think it’s about to go too far — we pop the balloon and pull you back into comedy,” he said.

As far as season 4 of “Ted Lasso” goes, filming wrapped up earlier this year, Hunt said. While the actor couldn’t divulge any details, it is known that the highly anticipated new season, expected to hit streaming in August, will feature an all-women’s soccer team.

“I can only tell you that we had a really, really good time getting back into it,” Hunt said. “We’ll see if it’s any good or not, but we sure like doing it.”Separately, Hunt is working on a memoir that explores life through his eyes as a non-partisan Chicago baseball fan.

“I was rooting for the Sox and the Cubs before anyone told me that I wasn’t allowed to root for both,” Hunt said.

For years, he’s hidden his love of both teams like some kind of “horrible secret.” But now, Hunt says, he’s tired of it. “I'm living my truth. I like both teams.”