Everyone loved Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt, who sadly exited “Ted Lasso” ahead of Season 4. It’s hard to imagine anyone else as AFC Richmond’s star player, but it turns out this character was originally supposed to have a South American flair. This led casting director Theo Park to Cristo Fernandez, a Mexican actor who played soccer in his home country during his youth before injuries derailed his career in the sport. Fernandez, of course, ended up playing the relentlessly positive Dani Rojas in “Ted Lasso,” a character who is almost the total opposite of the one he was originally sought for.
Fernandez made a good impression during his initial audition, but Dunster had also tried out for the show and Park loved him so much that she pushed for the team’s arrogant star to be British instead. “Nobody was quite as funny as Phil Dunster just playing a Brit, and then in that search for the South American, we found this fantastic, exuberant, puppy dog, gorgeous ex-pro Mexican footballer Cristo Fernandez,” she told Below the Line. “Then they thought, well we’ve got to give him a part, and then they rewrote another part for him. So Phil Dunster and Cristo Fernandez changed the writer’s perception of two roles so they wrote the roles around them.”
Cristo Fernandez is back playing soccer in real life
Theo Park was right to push for Phil Dunster to play the Jamie Tartt role in “Ted Lasso,” as that’s what led to creation of Dani Rojas, a character far more suited to Cristo Fernandez. With his bright smile, happy-go-lucky demeanor, and frequent laugh-out-loud moments, Fernandez’s Dani quickly endeared himself to “Ted Lasso” viewers. Like Dunster, Fernandez didn’t return for “Ted Lasso” Season 4, and the two have gone in very different directions — Fernandez has been able to relaunch his soccer career on the back of the show’s success.
Fernandez is now playing for El Paso Locomotive FC in the USL Championship, the second tier of professional soccer in the United States. “I just know that this dream of coming back and playing professional soccer again is crazy, but I’ve been working hard for this,” he told Goal. Signing for the team was a full circle moment for Fernandez, who has always been in love with the game. “When I was a kid my mom and my dad took me to my games, and they always said, ‘Cristo, the only thing he breathes, plays, sings, reads, and watches is football, football, football.’ That was the only thing.”