It really doesn‘t take too long for this effect to take over viewers‘ minds as the pilot episode features the FC 25 Coins introduction of club captain and former Chelsea star Roy Kent, and from the first moment he and Ted meet in the club‘s locker room and in his office, Goldstein looks decidedly “video gamey” to say the least. Merely by glancing over the Ted Lasso subreddit from a year ago, one will find many posts and jokes about Roy Kent.

What is it about Goldstein that has fans thinking that this very real man is just the product of the world's most accomplished deepfake since that fan-made Mark Hamill for Lucasfilm and Disney? While it‘s not the entire story behind it, it seems that -despite constantly changing directors- the camera equipment and lighting chosen for Ted Lasso, plus Apple TV‘s penchant for pristine quality high definition content can end up making everyone look utterly unreal, like Unreal Engine 5 game unreal.

Yet, for some reason Goldstein's combination of just the right facial features, his acting, mannerisms, movement, chiseled jawline, and perfectly defined beard make him stand out more than anyone else. Again, Brett Goldstein is very much a real flesh and bone person (just not the kind that can be signed in FIFA Ultimate), so much so that the actor was recently forced to clarify that he is indeed a real human that does "normal, human, basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data.", so nothing to see here, right?

For anyone doubting the veracity of this video posted on the actor‘s official Instagram account, Goldstein has appeared on several instances of live television, including a recent visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live where he again addressed the persistent CGI conspiracy theories that even have the actor himself doubting of whether he‘s part of a Matrix simulation or not.

Even Kimmel admits the CGI memes were what got him into watching Ted Lasso for the first time, although Goldstein did ace the host‘s chocolate milk test. In any case, it doesn‘t get any more real than Goldstein speaking about his role in Ted Lasso as a soccer football player being the opportunity to finally make his father proud of having a son who won the cheap Fut Coins Champions League.