Tom Brady Roast Producer on Getting Bill Belichick, Kim Kardashian vs. Drunk Hecklers and ‘Unprecedented’ Live Arena Setting
17,000 fans. The reunion of an American football dynasty and the coach no one expected to show. Televised live around the world while the reputation of a man considered “the greatest of all time” sits in the hands of savage comedians and one-time foes. What could go wrong?
But here we are, just days after Tom Brady took to the stage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles for Sunday’s “The Greatest Roast of All Time,” and the walls are still standing. For decades roast comedy has been a beloved national tradition, once shepherded on TV by Comedy Central. It was a show that often targeted Hollywood legends or zeitgeist icons. It took the willingness of Brady, who holds a record 7 Super Bowl rings, to reinvigorate the format for streaming under host Kevin Hart. And not just any roast, which would typically be shot on a Hollywood backlot and edited ahead of its premiere. This was live and uncensored, broadcast to Netflix’s global subscribers.
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“Why would he do this?” many, many people in the industry remarked to Variety in the weeks leading up to the roast, which served as the marquee event of the Netflix is a Joke comedy festival. The fearlessness of a quarterback aside, the answer is likely Casey Patterson. Brady tapped the seasoned live events producer to mark his first big post-retirement appearance, along with roast veteran Jeff Ross and his own label 199 Productions.
Patterson served for years as the architect behind Viacom-branded live events, introducing the first gender-neutral acting prize at the MTV Movie and TV Awards and lighting up New York with “One Night Only” specials honoring Alec Baldwin and Eddie Murphy. In recent years, Patterson has earned a reputation as go-to for specials surrounding meaningful cultural institutions. She brought Aaron Sorkin and “The West Wing” back for a 2020 Max reunion special that benefited When We All Vote, and in 2022 landed Daniel Radcliffe and company for the one-of-a-kind Harry Potter reunion “Return to Hogwarts.”
“The stakes were high here. Doing a roast live and in an arena, when more than half the dais are not professional comedians? It was the best kind of dangerous. I think viewers could feel that anything could happen, and it did — over and over again,” Patterson said. In 48 hours on platform, the Brady roast has dominated social media trending topics and hit number one on Netflix’s most viewed on the app in the United States.
NFL players like Drew Bledsoe, Rob Gronkowski, Randy Moss and Julian Edelman joined New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on stage, alongside roast assassins Ross, Nikki Glaser, Tony Hinchcliffe and Sam Jay. The evening pulled off some surprises with Will Ferrell (in character as his “Anchorman” favorite Ron Burgundy), Ben Affleck, Kim Kardashian and Peyton Manning cameos – but perhaps none more stunning than the appearance of Brady’s former Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
“The star of the night was Belichick, for having the grace, good humor and balls to show up. It’s what made this the night of a lifetime,” she said. “The history between Belichick, Kraft, Gronk, Edelman, Randy, it all helped ground the night in love and emotion beyond the comedy. That’s what Tom deserved. And they went hard on him for three hours.”
Brady told Variety it was “a new arena for me Sunday night, but I was ready for the hits coming my way. We had an incredible line up and Casey Patterson is one of the best in the business to captain this show.”
Football might easily be seen as a boy’s club, but Patterson led a team of women in bringing the roast to life. Veteran “Saturday Night Live” helmer Beth McCarthy-Miller directed the special, and Carol Donovan served as executive producer. Patterson also praised Netflix for “taking such a huge swing,” and installing the night for Brady among its other top comedy content over the Netflix is a Joke special. “They put together this comedy ‘Field of Dreams’ in Los Angeles, it’s remarkable,” she added.
Hart was ultimately her MVP, saying the comic “could’ve pulled everybody back and made it all business, but remember he is an arena comic. He knew exactly how to play the room and found the perfect balance between the stadium and the intimate art of roasting.”
Jokes hit on everything from Brady’s split from supermodel Gisele Bündchen to “Deflategate” to his high-minded supplements company. Not even Tom’s cheekbones were spared. Like any good roast, there were some controversial moments. On Tuesday, Variety reported that Netflix had edited out some intense booing when Kardashian took the stage to make a toast to football legend.
‘I loved Kim before this and I only have more respect for her now. Her material was fantastic, the real thing,” said Patterson. “There was no way one drunk section in the rafters was going to shake her delivery. I was in awe of Kim. There isn’t anyone on the production that was going to let that stand. She was the only one on the night that had to deal with that, and she came back from it and crushed.”
When doing battle with boozy hecklers, it’s good to have the Patriots behind you.
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