If the name Maximilian Osinski sounds familiar to you, it’s possible you’ve been watching him play hacker Boris Peskov on the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series NCIS: Tony & Ziva. However, if you’re a Ted Lasso fan, you know him as the actor who played Zava, who briefly played for AFC Richmond in Season 3. While Zava is a skilled footballers, Osinski told CinemaBlend that in real life, he messed up a play and accidentally injured one of his costars on the Apple TV+ show.
The actor recalled this moment towards the end of my recent interview with him about NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which included him talking about how that robot dog sequence from Episode 8 was filmed. When I brought up Ted Lasso and if he had fun stories from his time on the Emmy-winning series, he started off by saying:
On set, a really funny memory… My very first day as as Zava, it was a football block and we were recording football plays, and I met Toheeb [Jimoh] that day. We were doing a scene and I accidentally jumped too high and my shoulder hit his eye socket, and he needed an ice pack. I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Day One, and I like nearly broke the Emmy Award [nominee’s] nose with my shoulder, and I just arrived.’ But luckily nothing too bad happened.
Toheeb Jimoh, of course, played Sam Obisanya, one of the main AFC Richmond players during Ted Lasso’s first three seasons. He was also upgraded to a series regular in Season 3, so it’s unfortunate that one of the first things that happened to him in his newly-promoted role was getting hit in the eye socket. It was an accident on Maximilian Osinski’s part, but he was understandingly feeling badly about what happened.
Fortunately, Jimoh’s injury wasn’t as severe as it could have been, and he actually took the shouldering in stride with Osinski. The Zava actor continued:
That was funny, and what was great about that is he was had such a huge sense of humor about it, and we laughed and we took a photo with an ice pack, I think I posted it. But it’s just like, everyone’s really cool on this show. Hannah Waddingham was terrific, everyone was working as hard as if this was like Day 1 of the pilot.
It’s good to hear that Maximilian Osinski had an enjoyable experience working on his four Ted Lasso episodes. Zava abruptly left AFC Richmond and retired from football at the end of “Signs” to be with his family and work on his avocado farm. However, a magazine cover seen in the Season 3 finale revealed that he came out of retirement to play for Los Angeles Football Club, and was quoted as saying, “They love avocado toast here.”
While there’s no indication that we’ll see Zava return in Ted Lasso Season 4, now that he’s back to playing football, at least it’s a possibility now he could pop back in, albeit not as an AFC Richmond competitor since the upcoming season will focus on the new women’s team. At the very least, I’d like another update on what he’s up to these days. Feel free to revisit Maximilian Osinski’s time on Ted Lasso with your Apple TV+ subscription.