Lakers: Time to Win is one of the best series broadcast on world television. It has an important team of writers, in which Adam McKay is located, and every week he leaves several topics in conversation, mainly because he recreates events that have happened in reality. On the risk of playing real characters and the exposure of the last few chapters, Jason Segel is blunt: “When you represent people from real life, you have than knowing that you run a risk that many will not like your interpretation.”
In chapter six of the first season, his character, Paul Westhead, takes on greater prominence in fiction and that changes the dynamic again. As a result, Segel's performance finds a more central place for criticism, especially for those who know the history of the Lakers. His character, his preparation for the series and his closeness to the sport are some of the topics he discussed with Infobae before the HBO Max debut of Winning Time.
“I play Paul Westhead, the assistant coach and also friend and partner of Jack McKinney (Tracy Letts). He is called to coach the Lakers for the championship,” Jason described his character and added: “When we meet Paul, he is a slightly defeated character. He is teaching English and was stripped of any task as a coach at the college level. But Jack McKinney calls him to be his assistant with the Lakers.” We see this just after the beginning of the series, in the second chapter. But the series is giving the character more places.
Earvin Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes) are the key to the new Los Angeles Lakers season, for the first time with Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) at the helm of the franchise. He managed to start the season with some sporting and commercial successes and consolidating head coach Jack McKinney (Tracy Letts). When everything seemed to work, the Lakers have to look for a solution again.
[WARNING: from now on the note contains spoilers] “Paul is very happy in that position. And I think he thinks that is his fate, but due to a strange event, he is forced to step forward and try to lead the Lakers, and he goes from being incompetent to gaining the trust of his players and becoming the official coach,” Segel says about the point where fiction is.
For the actor known for How I Met Your Mother , the HBO show is not a docuseries; rather, he sees it as an origin story about the heroes of the Lakers of the 80s. “I think Jerry Buss was the driving force behind the different elements of show business today. I think I wanted sports and entertainment to merge. And on the other hand, by a stroke of luck, Jack McKinney's philosophy was to keep the ball moving and for things to happen at a rapid pace. And those two philosophies combined to create the Lakers' Showtime.”
Paul Westhead is leading the team in the second half of the first season of Winning Time. The former English teacher who joined the Lakers as an assistant, will now have to face his players as the head coach. “Just like in sports, my experience is that when you're performing with someone you admire, you're also improving your game. With such a good cast, I could only get better every time I had to act, and I found that every time I entered a scene it was like: 'Oh, crap, it better be great today, '” Segel described her experience and compared it to that of a basketball team.
“I would say that the cast of this show is so incredible, that there are 20 people in the scripts who could be the protagonists of his own television show,” the actor stressed about his peers, a group full of great performers, and added: “I don't know how they paid for it! But that's not my job,” Segel laughed as he tried not to deviate from the answer.
Lakers: Time to Win premieres every Sunday night on HBO Max and HBO signals.
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