Nick Mohammed blasts notoriously rude co-star’s ‘school bully’ behaviour on set

Nick Mohammed has ripped into a celebrity whose behaviour behind the scenes was so unpleasant it reminded him of ‘a school bully’.

The Ted Lasso star admitted the experience has stayed with him for years, describing the person as ‘notoriously rude’ at the height of their rise to fame.

Appearing on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast, Mohammed was asked what personality trait instantly puts him off.

‘Rudeness,’ he replied. ‘It is one thing I cannot understand.’

The actor went on to suggest that bad behaviour can sometimes be rewarded in the entertainment industry, particularly once performers reach a certain level of success.

‘This industry is definitely surrounded by its healthy share of rude people,’ he said. ‘I find it shocking when I meet people within this industry who will continue to do well because it’s slightly rewarded.’

Mohammed argued there is little justification for treating people badly in an industry built around make-believe.

‘At the end of the day… it’s still pretend,’ he said. ‘It’s an absolute luxury to be doing this and getting paid that amount. So to then be rude… it really doesn’t.’

The conversation then turned to whether he had witnessed that kind of behaviour himself.

‘Yeah,’ Mohammed replied. ‘Particularly when I was first starting out, but I’ve seen it more recently than that.’

Recalling one early television job, he explained: ‘There was definitely a time at the start of my career in telly where I was working with someone who will remain nameless. I can tell you off air… but they were at the height of breaking through, and they were notoriously rude.’

Rather than simply being difficult, Mohammed said watching them interact with others was deeply uncomfortable. ‘It was gross. It was just like watching a school bully.’

Looking back, he believes the behaviour came from insecurity.

‘Undoubtedly it stemmed from insecurity, as it always does. But it’s just like, “Oh come on, really?”‘ At the time, however, Mohammed felt unable to challenge what he was seeing.

‘I wish I’d had the guts to speak up at that point, but didn’t because I was too junior,’ he admitted, adding that there were more senior people on set who ‘were letting it fly’.

Fortunately, he thinks attitudes have shifted since then, saying he now feels ‘a lot more comfortable’ calling out rude behaviour if he witnesses it.

Mohammed has built an eclectic career spanning sketch comedy, hit TV shows and Hollywood blockbusters.

He earned two Emmy nominations for playing Nate Shelley in Ted Lasso alongside Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein, starred opposite David Schwimmer in his own comedy Intelligence, appeared on James Corden’s sketch show Horne & Corden back in 2009, and later featured alongside Matt Damon in The Martian.

Despite that long list of collaborators, he gave no clues about the identity of the actor he was referring to.

While he kept the mystery star’s identity firmly under wraps, Mohammed suggested reputations like that don’t always go unnoticed.

‘There are elements within the industry where people are like, “We just don’t want to work with this person,”‘ he said, hinting that even successful performers can eventually find that rudeness comes at a cost.