Let’s hear it for the girls.
Season 4 of “Ted Lasso” introduces a new team of Greyhounds to root for, after the titular character (Jason Sudeikis
) agrees to coach AFC Richmond’s women’s team in the premiere. When a player is sidelined by an unexpected pregnancy at the top of Episode 3 (streaming now on Apple TV) the team holds open tryouts looking for strikers, the players who focus on scoring in a game.Lizzie Davis (Faye Marsay), a mom who brings her son to tryouts, makes the team. Law student Gemma Jay (Abbie Hern), recruited by the nonsense-intolerant Coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), also joins the squad.
Chilton, who trains the Lady Greyhounds alongside Ted and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), was described by Sudeikis as “the Maypole” that
her fellow colleagues skip around during an interview with USA TODAY.
“She feels like the only grown-up with these little boys,” Reynolds agrees. “But I think they all, in the end, complement each other quite well, because I think they all bring different things to the table.”
The art of casting a perfect soccer team
Marsay notes that she originally auditioned for the role of Coach Alice, but realized that would’ve made “no sense at all.” She then “begged to come back in” to audition for the role of a teammate, highlighting her football skills in an audition video, in which she and her close friends played in suboptimal conditions.
“It was raining, dog poo everywhere; it was a grim setting,” she recalls, emphasizing how she needed to make the approaching deadline anyways. “And then my mate, who's a graphic designer, tried to edit it together all fancy, and it was awful. But I sent it anyway. And it worked out.”
Marsay wasn't the only one who did a little casting switch-up. Hern says she initially auditioned for intense goalie Katie "Boots" Quinn. "It didn't feel like me, and so I put it to the back of my head,” Hern says, “and they came back and [were] like, ‘Actually, we love you for Gemma.’"
As for Boots, the role ultimately went to Jude Mack − and Mack had their own funny audition story to share.
In the show, Boots refuses to wear gloves because the goalkeeper believes “the sting [of the ball] is everything,” Mack explains. However, when it came to Mack's audition, they purchased kids gloves to wear in the video. “It’s the worst video you could possibly send,” Mack recalls. “So I weirdly didn’t think anything of it, sent [it] in and was like, ‘See ya.’”
And yet, all three were chosen and sent to soccer bootcamp to prepare for their scenes on the pitch.
“We do, I would say, 95% of the football, and it's important that people know that,” Marsay says playfully.
Roles secured, but injuries, weather challenges arise
Marsay says she was so committed to her role that she actually injured her ankle on the first day of camp.
“By the end of the day, I had to have five days off and watch from the sidelines because I was so excited that I kicked the floor instead of the ball,” the actress says. “And I'm competent footballer … But I was just like a 10-year-old running about, charging about on that day.”
In addition to overcoming injury, Marsay says the players also had to endure an “insane amount of hours” on a “freezing cold football pitch” while filming in winter.
“We got down to -1 (°C),” Mack says of the temperature, which is about 30 °F. "In our little shorts."
“At -1, when it's damp, you can't just go inside and get warm. It gets in the bones,” Marsay adds, noting that the team relied on warmers that were worn on their bodies and shoved “down our bras.”
“I had two on the bottom of each [foot],” Hern says, “two in the hands and then two on the back.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Ted Lasso' newcomers detail their cringey audition tapes − 'Dog poo everywhere'
