Well, hi there. Welcome to this edition of Just Getting Started. Thrilled, thrilled to

bring you a man that I think is so intriguing. His name is Nick Muhammad. He plays Nate,

the great Shelley on Ted Lasso. I don't know about you, but I needed Ted Lasso to get through

COVID. I needed something hopeful and inspirational, just like this podcast, just getting started.

So let's go talk to Nick and find out how he just got started. I feel like Ted Lasso

came along in a very dark time in the world. And we needed a reason to smile. And I feel

like Nick, you gave us that with your character, Nate, the great Shelley. And I would love

to know what you were thinking, first of all, before we go back in time and talk about your

previous life as a seismologist and mathematician, I'm a magician, everything you can think of.

I'd love to hear your thoughts when you first saw this character on the pages. Did it jump out at

you? Did you have any idea how transcending Nate could possibly be? Oh goodness. I guess,

I guess the answer is no, really. I mean, I was drawn to the part and the script because you

could immediately tell that it was quality writing. There was an amazing creative team behind it.

And but you know, at that point, to be fair, you know, certainly when I went into audition for it,

I, you know, I didn't know exactly where the character was going to go. And it was only sort of

later on. And part of the reason why I then decided to do it was because they said, I'll just see,

you know, this is our kind of trajectory for this character. And then once we started filming

season one, Jason was very open about where it was going to go in terms of, you know, the heel turn

in season two and him kind of going to the dark side as it were. So I, I was, you know, I could

immediately tell that this was going to be a really fun show. And I loved that thematically,

it was optimistic and, you know, it felt really refreshing in that respect. And, you know,

that was before we knew that there was going to be a pandemic when it was going to go out, of

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