How Sam Richardson Went from High School Improv to a ‘Ted Lasso’ Emmy

Sam Richardson has an Emmy, a new action movie, a running list of comedy collaborators that reads like a hall of fame, and a hometown football team he refuses to give up on. He brought all of it back to The Rich Eisen Show for the first time since 2019, and he was every bit as funny as that résumé suggests.

The occasion is "Matchbox: The Movie," streaming on Apple TV starting Friday, October 9th. Anyone expecting a film about kids pushing tiny cars around the carpet should adjust. Richardson described it as the story of a group of friends, one of whom is John Cena, who moves away, becomes a secret agent and comes back to town. Then the whole crew gets "wrapped up in this international espionage mission" using their skills as hometown heroes and, yes, cars. Jessica Biel is in it too.

Richardson had just seen the finished product for the first time at the premiere in New York a couple of nights earlier. He admitted that the whole process was a leap of faith. You hear the title and wonder what it could be. You read the script and wonder how they will pull it off. You film it and wonder if it will come together. Then you watch it, and it is "exhilarating." His verdict: "I think it came together really well."

Rich asked what it was like working with Cena, and Richardson said most of the fight sequences belong to him. Watching Cena run through the stunts was "a feat to behold," but he was also "fun and funny, playful, but like also a man about his business."

Then came the story. The movie shot in Budapest, and it was Richardson's birthday. He, his buddy Arturo from the cast and Cena went out for drinks and steaks, and things escalated. "We tie one on until, like, we're drinking like we're all pro wrestlers, and we are not," he said.

According to Richardson, when you are John Cena, the hotel bar does not close. Cena was pouring drinks, and they were still going at 6 a.m. Richardson woke up around 10 in a different hotel room, a nice room at the Four Seasons that Cena had gotten him. "I think it was like, we're probably not going to send you on the streets of Budapest at this point," he said. He did, by his own account, lose that day.

Cena apparently told Richardson he would make a good wrestler. Asked on the spot for a ring name, Richardson settled on "The Panic," because "nobody knows what I'm going to do." When TJ asked about a finishing move, he had that ready too: the panic attack.

Rich, a Michigan man, pointed out that Richardson is the pride of Wayne State and a native Detroiter. The roots of his career go back to high school. Richardson met Tim Robinson while taking classes at Second City as a 15-year-old. Robinson was on the Second City touring company, the two did shows at a theater called Planet Ant, and Robinson eventually became his teacher while Richardson was still in high school.

They became fast friends and wrote a bunch of shows together, and both got hired to work in Chicago on the touring companies and the main stage when they were roughly 17 to 20 years old. "I knew him when I was in puberty," Richardson said, before adding that he hit puberty at 22.

His favorite sketch from Robinson's "I Think You Should Leave" is the one about a game show creator with rules nobody can follow. A guy in a metal suit is supposed to climb a wall and touch panels that change color, and the contestants cannot figure it out. What Richardson loves is the character "who has so many complicated rules on something but wants to get everybody on board and nobody can quite figure it out." The guy in the suit was genuinely frustrated in real life, too.

Jason Sudeikis entered the picture through Second City as well. He would come back as an alumnus when Richardson and Robinson were on the main stage in Chicago and improvise with them. After they both left, Sudeikis kept telling them they needed to do a show together. He got Richardson onto "We're the Millers" and produced "Detroiters." The only condition the two of them added: "It's got to be about Detroit."

That network of friends led straight to "Ted Lasso" and an Emmy. Richardson explained that the writers were buddies who knew his mother is Ghanaian. When the character Sam Obisanya showed up, Richardson texted Joe Kelly, a co-creator of "Detroiters," to ask if the character was named after him. The answer: "Buddy, obviously." Richardson conceded he has been telling that story for years and is choosing to believe Kelly was not humoring him.

Richardson played Edwin Akufo, a billionaire trying to buy Sam's contract, whom Rich described as real bad. Richardson agreed: "Yeah, real bad. Real spoiled brat." The appeal was getting to be mean, which runs opposite to his own low-key, jovial personality.

He watched the first season simply to support his friends and ended up "crying" and thinking, "Guys, you did it. You made the best show." Joining for season two meant flying to England in the middle of the pandemic and quarantining in a hotel room for two weeks before shooting. "Made myself a little crazy, which I think maybe helped the character," he said.

On set, he also got to improvise a lot, including threats about burning down a childhood home. On his way out of one scene, he choked a mannequin and possibly kicked it. The set dresser was not pleased. "I've worked in TV before. I should have known better."

Rich wondered whether Richardson is the only Emmy winner ever to mention the Detroit Lions in an acceptance speech. "I think I am. I'm willing to bet that I am," Richardson said.

So how does he feel about the Lions four games into the season? Hopeful. He thinks the team is "just kicking the rust off." He believes Jared is playing as well as anybody and the offense is "kicking," but the defense needs help. Rich noted the Lions have given up the most points through the first four weeks and that injuries on that side of the ball seem to be an annual thing.

Richardson has not lost faith. "They talk about the Lions' curse, and I really do think this is the year where it does lift," he said. He would rather the team start rough and climb than watch it get good and then fall apart. In his view, "a couple of pieces will really charge everything." Rich reminded everyone the team is 2-2, and you never know.

Growing up, Richardson went to the Silverdome, but Ford Field is an easier trip, and he goes all the time now. He shot a commercial with Barry Sanders and now calls him a friend. Two weeks ago he was on the sideline, and Megatron came over to dap him up. When a friend asked what was happening, Richardson told him, "Oh, you mean my friend Calvin?"

Before letting him go, Rich asked for Richardson's favorite "Veep" moment. He picked a deposition episode that was shot essentially in two takes over two days. The highlight was Jonah's insults being tallied, with the cast forced to keep a straight face because breaking would throw off the order of everything.

Richardson credited the writing. When an insult was not landing, the writers would huddle and return with something "devastating" and often aimed at the actor's actual appearance. "That's the character, right? Yeah, I guess, but that is my face you're talking about," he said. Tim Simons absorbed most of it. One replacement line, calling Jonah "a bunch of Play-Doh stuck on a flagpole," had Richardson screaming with laughter "because it was accurate."

The hard part about "Veep," he said, was writing something stranger than reality. They would film scenes six months in advance, and people would later ask if a scene was inspired by something that happened the week before. Rich put it best: they foreshadowed it. "I miss the show," Richardson said. After this interview, it is easy to see why.