Lifestyle
With Underdog Brand, Jason Kelce Takes ‘Made in the U.S.’ Seriously
Jason Kelce, a mellow mountain of a man, has spent most of his life fretting over offensive snaps.
Now, a year into his retirement after 13 seasons as a center for the Philadelphia Eagles, Mr. Kelce has space to puzzle over other matters. Lately, he’s been thinking about sweatshirts and T-shirts. And he has thoughts. Lots of thoughts.
“On the inside of a sweatshirt, I don’t like when it feels fuzzy,” said Mr. Kelce, speaking on a video call from his Philadelphia home in April, just a few days after the birth of his fourth daughter. He wants a “heavier-duty” sweatshirt, with a smidge of stretch. Something durable, “that you can wear working or lounging around on the couch.”
Oh, and it needs to be made entirely in the United States.
To achieve all this, Mr. Kelce, 37, has taken matters into his own hands. Today, his Underdog apparel brand is debuting a tidy collection of crew neck sweatshirts and T-shirts, all produced — from the cotton to the completed garment — in the United States. These items are produced in collaboration with American Giant, a San Francisco-based company formed in 2012 that manufactures entirely in the United States.
The American Giant-produced Underdog pocket T-shirts and French terry sweatshirts will sell for $45 and $79, respectively, and will be sold on the Underdog website. They are, to Mr. Kelce’s specifications, on the burlier side. During the interview, he wore the pocket T-shirt in green, his abundant biceps mildly squeezed by the sleeves.
“I don’t want to offend anybody, I never understood the reason that somebody would want to wear Gucci, or some of these high-end brands,” said Mr. Kelce, leaving unsaid that his brother, Travis, has been known to wear a Gucci hat or two. “It’s never appealed to me.”
“I would much rather wear something that symbolized a blue-collar worker as opposed to a suit,” he added, even if he does have to wriggle into a suit when he appears as an analyst for “Monday Night Countdown” on ESPN.
That Underdog’s clothes are entirely made in the United States is the most gratifying part to Mr. Kelce.
“I grew up going into steel mills with my father,” he said of his childhood in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. “So, the concept of American workers making things was something that was ingrained early. And I just always gravitated toward it.”
Mr. Kelce has long been plotting for life after his last snap. In 2022, he started the “New Heights” podcast with his brother. It remains in the top 200 of Apple’s top podcasts, though it now runs behind his wife Kylie’s show, “Not Gonna Lie.”
While many retired athletes pour money into car dealerships or restaurant ventures, Mr. Kelce became curious about clothes.
“I was trying to come up with what’s a way that we can celebrate Philadelphia,” said Mr. Kelce, who is nothing if not an unofficial ambassador for his adopted city. “And I love wearing shirts that represent me and everything that I believe in.”
He started Underdog in 2022 as an apparel brand with vigorous nods to Philadelphia. Past graphics featured his Eagles teammates, and the name alludes to the Eagles having labeled themselves as underdogs on their way to winning the Super Bowl in 2018. It is a unique proposition from a former athlete, and one that has, to many outside the Eagles fandom, perhaps flown under the radar. Underdog does not have the techy edge of say, Tom Brady’s slick, fitness-centric Brady brand. It leans more on Mr. Kelce’s jolly, jumbo-size profile than on his on-field prowess.
The label has made prior attempts at producing in the United States, though Mr. Kelce soon learned that even if the tag said an item had been made here, “a good portion of that might be made overseas.” Garments that read “Made in the United States” can be produced from cotton or other components that derive from elsewhere.
In American Giant, Underdog found a partner that was capable of producing the whole garment, including the fabric, here in the United States. The cotton was harvested and finished in the Southeast, including in North Carolina. The garments themselves were produced in Los Angeles.
“These fabrics were custom-designed for Jason,” said Bayard Winthrop, the chief executive of American Giant who underscored that the ex-Pro-Bowler “had lots of small opinions” about how the shirts and sweats should fit and feel.
“The shirts have a really gutsy, sturdy quality to them,” said Mr. Winthrop. “They drape a certain way. They’re not clingy to the body. They’re not overly delicate.”
Last year, Mr. Kelce traveled with Mr. Winthrop to North and South Carolina see the production process firsthand, giving him a look at how clothes are made that few people ever see, or even consider. With most apparel manufacturing having been exported overseas, only 2 percent of the clothing Americans buy is manufactured domestically.
“The eye-opening part for me was how truly decentralized this is, how many people touch just one T-shirt and how many steps there are in that process,” said Mr. Kelce. “I had never really thought much about that.”
Though this project has been in the works for around two years, it debuts at an auspicious moment, as Americans are contemplating what they’re willing to sacrifice — macro- and micro-economically — to bring back American manufacturing. Hours before the interview, President Trump pulled back on steep tariffs that had unsettled the global economic landscape, though a tit-for-tat trade war with China has continued.
“I have no issues with global trade whatsoever,” said Mr. Kelce, who was evenhanded about the impact of his small stab at making his goods solely in the United States. He was, he said, not going to stop buying shirts and clothes that were not totally made here.
“I don’t think there’s any type of statement trying to be made other than, ‘Listen, there’s some really awesome reasons to support homegrown American businesses and local businesses,’” he said.
Considering Mr. Kelce’s longstanding love affair with Philadelphia, it may strike some shoppers as odd that the Underdog line is not produced there. It was discussed, but the reality, said Mr. Winthrop, was that Philadelphia, like many cities that were once manufacturing hubs, was “gutted out” when it came to apparel production.
“There is no at-scale dyeing or finishing or knitting capability in Philly,” he said. Mr. Kelce said that in the future, the company would find ways to incorporate the city into its brand. His partner, Stephen Porter, noted that anything Underdog screen printed or embroidered was done locally.
The line might not be made in Philadelphia, but his green shirt proved that Mr. Kelce knew he had to keep his fans happy.
“Philadelphia bleeds green,” he said. “If we didn’t have a green shirt, it would have felt like malpractice.”
Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.
Kate Green/Getty Images
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Kate Green/Getty Images
Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.
Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.
But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”
The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.
Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.
“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.
Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
Interview highlights
On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies
I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …
The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.
On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up
I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.
On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance
I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.
On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant
I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.
Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.
I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.
On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works
I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer
Published
Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.
“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”
Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”
As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”
He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.
Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
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Paramount Pictures
The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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