Brett Goldstein opened up about being depressed after receiving repeated professional disappointment ahead of Ted Lasso. Two promising shows that seemed like a breakthrough in the US for him fell through in consecutive years. He said that he visited a therapist, who recommended that he start a gratitude journal. With a new outlook on his failures, he started considering himself lucky and saw the tables turn when the Ted Lasso opportunity soon showed up at his door.
Brett Goldstein on fighting the depression battle before Ted Lasso breakthrough
In an interview with Men’s Health, Goldstein detailed fighting depression when his career gave him hope and snatched it away abruptly. He reflected on how two potential breakthroughs for his career fell apart in back-to-back years that left him disappointed and hopeless. He said that by his third pilot season, he started to sense that the hope he had was fading.
“‘I wasn’t even auditioning for anything I thought was good. I was being sent scripts and thinking, I don’t even want to be in this.’ He was staying alone in LA, feeling increasingly down. ‘It was all a bit grim.’ Also, I was getting older and I had this moment of genuine… I don’t know, epiphany, or something, where I was like, Maybe I’ve missed my window. Maybe the window for me having any sort of big success has gone,” he said.
He added that he was depressed and then he went to his therapist. However, nothing worked for him until his therapist suggested that he start a gratitude journal. He asked him to make a list of 10 things that happened in a day that he’s grateful for.
“This didn’t come naturally. ‘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 fucking amazing!” he elaborated.
Moreover, he realized that all he wanted to do was to create stuff, and he did it every day but at a low level. At the time, he didn’t think about fame but was grateful for his life and called himself the “luckiest guy in the world.” Two weeks later, he received a call about Ted Lasso.
