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Hannah Waddingham always had a hunch that “Ted Lasso” would return. Even when creator and star Jason Sudeikis wasn’t so sure. “I could have told him we were coming back,” laughed that star, who has played AFC Richmond
team owner Rebecca Welton since “Ted Lasso” first launched in 2020. “I don’t know whether I was just in denial that it had finished or in some kind of weird head space that it was going to continue. I just thought there’s no way, with the quality of our Jedi writing team [that it wouldn’t].” Speaking on Wednesday evening at the Variety x Apple TV “Ted Lasso” New York Screening and Q&A (held at the MoMA), Waddingham pointed out that not only is Sudeikis a big supporter of professional women’s sports, but Season 3 ended with the perfect segue for a new storyline: Keeley (Juno Temple) gives Rebecca a dossier on how AFC Richmond should add a women’s team. “Come on, for God’s sake,” Waddingham said. “It’s just an obvious thing that it’s going to be fucking magic. So get on with it! Like, what took you so long? I knew we were coming back anyway!” “Ted Lasso” co-creator Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard) said he didn’t want to push Sudeikis on the issue. “I kind of took it as my job to never discuss it with him, because I knew a million people would be discussing it with him and pressing about him about it all the time,” he said. “And then finally, one day I got a text, ‘I think we should do it. And I think we should do the women’s team.’ And then we were off to the races.” Temple said she and Waddingham would often text about what they were hearing and whether to — in “Ted Lasso” parlance — believe. She said returning was a no-brainer for her. “Just the joy of it being the continuation of the incredible story we’ve gotten to tell so far, and then this absolute fresh take on it,” she said. “And it being something about a women’s team and this incredible new cast that we get to watch flourish and grow was something that was an honor to get to do again … It’s a job that I’ve learned a lot from. And I think I’m somebody that loves learning as much as possible. Whether I can retain all the information sometimes is questionable!” Waddingham joked that she most dreaded figuring out how to get back into Rebecca’s “quite tight pencil skirts. I was thinking, how much time have I got to, you know, stop eating things?” Also back and on stage at the panel (moderated by Variety executive editor, TV, Michael Schneider) was Annette Badland, who plays Mae, the owner of the Richmond pub The Crown & Anchor, where Ted and Beard share many a pint. “I believe in the actual pub in Richmond, they have a whole room dedicated to ‘Ted Lasso’ now,” she said of the real watering hole that inspired The Crown & Anchor. “And there is, on the wall, a painting of Mae with a heart. So I’m thinking of having a tattoo. I think it’s obligatory. Anyone that goes to the pub needs to have that tattoo on their backside.” Joining the veterans on the panel were three new “Ted Lasso” stars: Tanya Reynolds, who plays women’s coach Alice Chilton; Jude Mack, who plays goalie Boots; and Abbie Hern, whose character, Gemma, may be the best athlete on the team. Finding the right person to play Coach Chilton was key, Hunt noted: “This is the person who has to fit in our office the most, who we’re going to be hanging out with a lot. There’s a sort of preset rhythm to those scenes. It’s like joining a cover band, basically.” Alice has a gruff demeanor that begins to melt the longer she spends time with Ted. “She’s so delicious for an actor because she’s kind of everything,” Reynolds said. “She’s a lot. Alice kind of starts off as this spiky, cold shrew. But there’s a lovely journey of her softening and peeling back. She’s lovely.” The idea of Mack’s character, Boots, comes out of the general sense that goalies are a bit more wild and eccentric. “Jason was like, ‘That’s Boots right there. Let’s go. We’re done.’ As you will see, as the season progresses, that has turned out to be very, very true,” Hunt said. Said Mack: “It’s a gift to play a character who’s just a bit unhinged. It means every new script you’re like, ‘So, that’s what we’re doing today. OK.’ Which is just so much fun. And I think, she’s rooted in truth, so there’s all this arrogance and bluff. But she’s grounded in truth and there’s loads of vulnerability there. She is desperate for connection and community, and that’s what she gets from this lot.” And then there’s Hern as Gemma. “It’s been phenomenal joining the team,” she said. “If you guys love the team half as much as we love each other, then we are in for a treat. Gemma is a joy.” Among this season’s guest stars is Tracey Ullman, who appears in several episodes. “I felt like I’d won a competition to work with her,” Waddingham said. “I’ve loved her all my life.” So, how much will the tension over making the women’s team successful weigh on the friendship between Rebecca and Keeley? Rebecca sees how much this expansion means to Keeley and doesn’t want to rain on her parade, but knows it is quite a financial gamble. Temple isn’t worried: “I think it’s going to go to the next level of friendship where it becomes something even deeper, even bigger, even more important,” she said, “and a greater example of what it is to actually explore female friendships that are real life, which is sometimes you have to guide your friends in a direction so that they are learning things. And they are allowed to also get things wrong. The key to it all is communicating.” Added Waddingham: “In real life, there is an unspoken, ‘we’re not ultimately going anywhere, but we will always call each other out on things.’ And it’s really lovely that as much as Keeley needs Rebecca to further that, so does Rebecca. She has to be called out. And the main person she listens to is Keeley.” Temple was particularly pleased with the way the show explored all of the topics that come with the struggles in bringing pro women’s sports to the mainstream. “It was another way to explore how women’s sports are not even close to how men are seen,” she said. That was actually a really profound part of the relationship that Rebecca and Keeley go through as well.” Waddingham said she’s been “fiercely protective” of Rebecca from the beginning, even back when she was a bit more of the villain in early episodes of “Ted Lasso.” “When people used to say she was like Darth Vader on ‘Ted Lasso,’ I was like, ‘You can shut the fuck up.’ She was a woman, scorned, wronged, usurped, all of it. The joy every single minute that I’ve had this girl rippling through my bloodstream. As someone who’s 6’2″ in heels, I had never had a role come to me like this. The joy then of playing it over many seasons that you can finesse quietly in some ways has been really incredible. It’s, it’s an arc that I will always be so grateful for and long may it continue!”
