The View star Joy Behar reveals why she turned down a role in Ted Lasso
Joy Behar turned down a role on 'Ted Lasso' because she didn't want to fly to London in the middle of a heat wave.
Joy Behar turned down a role on 'Ted Lasso' because she didn't want to fly to London.
The 81-year-old TV star - who is best known for her long-running role as a panelist on ABC's 'The View' - had been approached for a role to play Dottie Lasso on the hit Apple+ show but because the call came "in the middle of a heatwave", she refused to sit on a flight for several hours in such extreme temperatures.
Speaking on the 'Behind the Table' podcast, she said: "It was too hot, you remember? There was a heat wave going on at that time, like, 100-degree weather, and I’d have to get on a plane and go in the middle of the heat? No!"
Joy - who has made a career out of interviewing celebrities on television - is currently writing her memoirs and insisted that she "doesn't care" about other people's projects but reasoned she may have considered taking part in the show had it been at a different time of the year.
She added: "Listen, I’m a writer, I write my own stuff, I don’t care about other people’s stuff. I don’t need to be in everything. It was not the hottest show on TV [then]. If they were doing it in the spring I would’ve done it maybe, or in the fall, but not in the middle of the heat wave."
In the end, the role of Dottie - who is the mother of Jason Sudeikis's title character - went to Becky Ann Baker and she earned an Emmy nomination for her work.
Joy added: "Well, good for her. Bravo!"
Joy was an original panellist on 'The View' when it launched in 1997 but was let go from the show in 2013 and returned a year later.
At the time, she alleged that "someone" on the production wanted her gone because of her political views as she claimed that the decision to leave was not entirely her choice.
She said: "Somebody wanted me gone. was not 100 percent my choice. When they told me they weren’t renewing, I said, ‘Good, I’m out of here.’"
