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Juno Temple was no stranger to comedy despite what the press junkets for Ted Lasso harped on about. It’s risible that one of the actors referred to her as being previously all about hardcore drama. In 2009, she could be seen in a mainstream movie starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. Despite being directed by Harold Ramis, Year One is not something that gets brought up when people talk about Juno because she has been in so many films with so many famous names in front of and behind the camera. She’s like Christina Ricci in that you would be forgiven for overlooking one of her films but not because that they were forgettable. Even her lesser films are memorable. Since Ted Lasso is a TV series, it’s strange that critics have seen it as Juno’s introduction to TV comedy since she had been in episodes of Drunk History where she played Marilyn Monroe in 2016 and Sybil Luddington in 2014.
Way before Year One, Juno Temple proved that she could let her hair down by doing comedy as seen in St. Trinian’s (2007). This was an English comedy about an all girls school. In the above photo, Juno is hugging Paloma Faith - they share the same birthday: July 21. In between both films, she was in a U.S. film that was similar to St. Trinian’s (especially since it also takes place in England). Titled Wild Child (2008), Juno had befriended the star - Emma Roberts (as seen below in 2011). Juno described her own character: “Very naive. Quite innocent. Speaks before she thinks. Quite carefree. I kind of liked that. I felt very strongly that she was someone who wasn't affected by magazines, having to be a size zero, about always having to look beautiful. Wore what she wanted, even though she looked like she had woken up, taken acid in the dark and got dressed. And she was a very sweet, genuinely very sensitive character. I had so much fun playing her.”
After Year One, Juno Temple was seen in St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009). It’s amazing that she was in the sequel since Juno described her screen time in the first film as “Sneeze and you'll miss me” because she shot quite a few more scenes than what made into the final cut. She added: “But they all involved drug-taking. They couldn't show those because it was a PG12 or whatever - it was for young girls so they had to cut those scenes. Which I understand.”
In 2010, Juno Temple was seen in Dirty Girl. Despite the title and poster, the film didn’t exactly do for her what Easy A did for Emma Stone despite premiering at the same event in the same week: TIFF (i.e. Toronto International Film Festival). I’m reminded of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) where the poster gives the illusion that Sean Penn is having his own “Tom Cruise in Risky Business” moment. What connects Juno and Sean’s films is that they are more dramatic than expected, and their characters don’t get the emphasis that you would expect.
Dirty Girl sounds and seems like it could be an irreverent sex comedy but it’s really a self-discovery film about a gay boy. Still, you get inklings of Juno having a funny bone. The Southern American accent is sort of a foreshadowing to the Southern English (specifically Cockney) accent that she has in Ted Lasso. The down-to-earth nature of both accents make for convenient bookends in Juno’s comedy career, especially since Ted Lasso came out in 2020 - making it a kind of tenth anniversary of what she did in Dirty Girl. She certainly gives the illusion of being a trashy girl in Ted Lasso. Juno Temple was definitely a dirty girl in an earlier 2010 film called Kaboom. Unlike Dirty Girl (which takes place in 1987), Kaboom was more accessible to the millennial demographic of its cast. In a strange turn of events, the film sort of mirrors Dirty Girl in that Juno has chemistry with a lead actor who came out as gay several years later. By several, I mean seven.
Coincidentally, director Gregg Araki is gay. It would appear that Gregg has a gaydar since one of the cast members has played queer roles: James Duval. Gregg sure can pick them. Kelly Lynch was in episodes of The L Word, and Juno had played a lesbian werewolf in Jack & Diane (2012). Released even earlier in 2010 was Greenberg - a Ben Stiller dramedy where Juno Temple had a small role as an Australian. This film was the equivalent of Adam Sandler in Spanglish (2004) and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), so it was easy for Juno to not be pigeonholed as a blatant comedy actress. Most of her comedies were independent, so it was easy for her skills in that area to be overlooked. Since she is primarily into alternative rock music, it stands to good reason that Juno would never be in typical comedic fare.
For example, The Brass Teapot (2012) is a masochistic comedy that would have been recognized more had the film starred Juno's more famous lookalike: Jennifer Lawrence. In real life, Jennifer has a wackier persona in interviews. But that doesn't take away from the ebullient charm that Juno has. One critic described her performance as buoyant yet poignant. Juno playing a character named Alice in a darkly magical story is almost compensation for how she failed to win the role of Alice in Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (2010). The premise of The Brass Teapot is basically a genie bottle parable but without the genie. The caveat is that the couple only get money if they experience pain. Another twist is that the film is based on a comic book that was jointly written by the screenwriter and director.
Released before The Brass Teapot in 2012 was another comedy except one where Juno had a small role. Smart Apartments is an American film but starring a British comedy legend: Matt Lucas. As such, this should have paved the way for Juno to be something of a fixture in British comedy. However, she was never really up for being committed to TV until she auditioned for a Martin Scorsese drama series called Vinyl (2016). The exception to the rule was Drunk History because it was, in a way, the equivalent of a film actor making a one-off appearance in an episode of Saturday Night Live. Back to Vinyl, the seventies-set series foreshadowed Juno’s Jack & Diane co-star starring as a ‘70s rocker in Daisy Jones & the Six (2023). Coincidentally, Riley Keough had auditioned for Vinyl.
Juno Temple really likes her dark fantasies as she played the role of a humorous pixie in Maleficent (2014). Her character, Thistlewit, reflects Juno’s free-spirited nature. In that vein, the character is not unlike the part that Julia Roberts played in Hook (1991). The difference being that Pretty Woman (1990), in another time and place, would have been more perfect for Juno since she has done more nudity than Julia and has a more unconventional beauty that would have made it easier for audiences to believe that she is playing a prostitute. Juno is also genuinely more down-to-earth. Her father, Julien, was a music video director who worked with rock bands. Juno, herself, has been in music videos for various artists - Plushgun (Just Impolite), Native Roses (Shadows), Tashaki Miyaki (Girls on TV), The Shelters (Gold) and Lily Kershaw (Party Meds).
Before Juno acted in Vinyl, she was going to play the wife of Ray Davies in a biopic about The Kinks. Julien’s dream project, titled You Really Got Me, didn’t get off the ground because it was during a time when it wasn’t particularly trendy to make music biopics. Juno played a pop star in a comedy-drama called Len and Company (2015) and she played a songwriter in a drama called Lost Transmissions (2019), so it wasn’t a surprise to see her as a singer in a dramedy called Mr. Corman (2021). It’s inevitable that Juno will eventually play a rock star in a film that doesn’t have to try to be as funny as This Is Spinal Tap (1984) in order to convey the humour that comes from being in a band. Her bohemian upbringing provided the template.