"It always has heart": Why "English Teacher" reminds Enrico Colantoni of "Ted Lasso"

Keith Mars, Enrico Colantoni’s private detective on “Veronica Mars,” is the kind of guy people love being around. Caring without being overbearing, good-humored but not corny, Keith dotes on his his daughter while trusting her intelligence and capability. And Veronica’s friends think he’s cool.

Colantoni’s role in FX's frenetic and hilarious “English Teacher” is, well, not Keith. In one scene Brian Jordan Alvarez’s main character Evan Marquez advises a visitor that, if they see Colantoni’s Principal Grant Moretti, to just walk the other way.

The head administrator at Morrison-Hensley High does care, to be clear. Mainly about his job. He spends most of his workday avoiding conflict, praying that the district or an angry parent doesn’t add to his miseries. When they do, he simply bends to the latest rule change until someone forgets they made a stink. This goes against everything the crusading Evan stands for, which drives Moretti to rely a little too heavily on Alka Seltzer.

Colantoni’s roles in “Galaxy Quest” and the long-running NBC series “Just Shoot Me” won over the public before playing Keith Mars earned him a place in the TV Dad Hall of Fame. Playing Principal Moretti required him to tap into moods and improvisational skills he wasn’t used to flexing.

But as the actor shared with Salon during a recent face-to-face interview in Pasadena, that helped him tap into all the freewheeling and surprising displays of heart that make him love being in and watching this new show. In our conversation we discussed where his principal falls on the scale of other memorable school bosses on film and TV, the underappreciated value of accepting each other's differences, and why he believes "English Teacher" is in the same league as the most beloved feel-good TV comedy of our era.

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

It looks like you had a good time making this show.

I did. You know what? All my experience and training never prepared me for a show like this, because it was just about fun. They had something beautiful on the page, and they’d go, “OK, we got that now. Let's just blow it up and see what happens.” I was always a little skeptical about how they were going to cut it. And then you see it — because I hadn't seen it until you did – and wow. They really have heart. That's what I love about it. You can be funny, but without the heart and the warmth . . . I’m just emotionally proud of this show, and how it's current and alive and relevant and funny. But the heart! It always has heart.

So, I’m thinking of “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and even the show people still associate you with, “Veronica Mars.” Each has a principal who's kind of a no-nonsense person, right? Principal Moretti is in that tradition, but not quite. The difference is that he’s just trying to survive and maintain at this point. Was there someone that you based him on?

No. I mean, I loved my high school years. I loved the teachers. They encouraged me and intentionally discouraged me from becoming an actor, right? Those teachers painted the dark story of what it would be like. Then, once I decided that I was going to do it anyway, they'd go, “Good for you.”

But this guy is just something else.

I always come from a place of wanting to bring my heart to something. And any character who's in a position of authority has to approach it from a kind of caring for everybody. But how do you do that when everything is changing and you don't know how to communicate with people and you don't know what they're doing? He's so defeated, but he's trying. So how does an old guy like Moretti deal with it? There's a lot of him just saying, “OK, I don't understand it. I'm gonna step back.”

So he's not like those principals you described earlier. Because they’re usually . . .

They're the authoritarians. They’re the ones who deflate the fun from the room. In “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” he’s out to get Ferris. The same is true of the principal on “Buffy.”

That’s true, but the one on “Veronica Mars,” he sort of saw something in Veronica.

Right. I would also say the way that show approached authority figures, and I include Keith Mars in this assessment, is from a perspective of encouragement that reflected the outlook of its time.

Yeah, that's very true. That whole era was about young girls being empowered, and Veronica was such an easy character to sort of support. But that's very interesting. Moretti . . . he is encouraging, I guess. But his way of encouraging is just kind of going, “Go do what you're going to do. I don't want to hear about it. Don't tell me about it.”

And that makes “English Teacher” very aligned with this era since it revolves around the idea of what it means to both be in school as a teacher and a student, and how much that has changed because of the political atmosphere. There's so much pressure related to what to say, what not to say, what to teach, what not to teach. And the show takes that on from a playful perspective by taking the air out of it.

That's what makes this show smart. I mean, even parents, they have all the responsibility with less and less authority, and teachers are the same way. You bring your kids to school, and you entrust these people to teach them, but they're not allowed to do what they're supposed to do because of that and this, and the fear of being called out or canceled.

English Teacher (FX)

There's a whole culture going on that just makes people not want to do what they love to do. And everybody's being watched. Everybody. But when you start watching teachers who are underpaid and always underappreciated, and you still sort of pick on them, that's just not fair. You know what? They're making no money and they're tired, and the ones that care who are there for 18 hours, and you still want to pick on them? Not fair.

Did you talk to any teachers or administrators about that?

No. But I just loved all my teachers. I loved them all. And I knew that if I just brought my generational perspective to this world, I would find Moretti there. Look, the world is changing. I'm an old guy. How do I deal with this? And how do teachers teach anymore?

One of the most refreshing parts of the show is the way it completely captures the intergenerational conversation about how we talk to and past each other. I'm watching it from the perspective of a Gen Xer who's doing my best to keep up. But also, there's the Millennial perspective, represented by Brian's character, stuck between Moretti and the kids, who are Gen Z. So when you say you brought your generational perspective, what do think you, Enrico, brought to Moretti and your understanding of all the changes that are happening around us?

All that stuff didn't concern me growing up. What I wanted back then was just very simple: you wanted to pass, you wanted to move on, you wanted to get laid, you wanted to grow up. You wanted to find security.

My parents were World War II survivors, immigrants to a new world. It was all about wanting to fit in and not wanting to rock the boat and just respecting my elders and authority figures. Just assuming that if I was in trouble, I was in trouble. I took it as a growing experience. And so it's cause and effect for me: you put this out there, you're going to get this.

But there's resistance to that now. It's like dealing with somebody who just doesn't want to take any responsibility. How do you talk to somebody who doesn't see that they have a role in all of it and that we all have a stake in what's going on in the world?

It seems so easy to just point our fingers and blame. And in this show, everybody's pointing their fingers, but they're doing it with such lightheartedness that, like you said, they take the air out of it. But that doesn't mean it's right, or that's the way to go. That's just what's happening right now. So if we’re going look at this, let's look at it from a place of respect and love. Not, “I'm done, and you're done with me.”

I come from the theater, right? It's like a mecca of diversity and differences. So that kind of cancel culture and stuff, I don't understand it. And that's my generation, right? It's just like, aren't you allowed to pick fun and make fun? . . . That's what's so refreshing about this show. It's fun to come from a place of acceptance of what's going on.

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I would say this show is an argument that cancel culture doesn't exist.

Well . . .

I don't think it exists, really and truly. I think it’s mainly a marketing tool for famous people. But on the ground level, people are having conversations like, “Please don't say that. You can't say that anymore.” And then some people will say –

“I’m just gonna say it anyway.” You're right. We're reacting to what we created in the first place. And that beautiful first line, of “I don't think there’s a such a thing as woke anymore. The kids are not woke, the pendulum is just swinging the other way.” We can't say the things we wanted to say, and I try to make Moretti try to make sense of that. You know, like, “I didn't get the memo. I was allowed to say it two days ago, and I'm not allowed to say it now?” And that's really funny.

You know, my favorite show is "Ted Lasso” for the simple reason that it's just a positive, funny show.

Would you say this is the new “Ted Lasso”?

I think so. I want it to be.

What do you think makes it like “Ted Lasso”?

Well, because there is warmth and there is acceptance in who these characters are. When an ultra-conservative gym teacher reacts to a very liberal English teacher, and they find a place of acceptance and friendship? That's what makes me want to see it and keep going back to it and keep doing it. To feel that. It's all I want.

New episodes of "English Teacher" air at 10 p.m. Mondays on FX and stream the next day on Hulu.