Learn more about the on-screen and off-screen lives of the main characters in the blockbuster Apple TV+ series as it nears its conclusion.
Season 3 of Ted Lasso has concluded, but actor Jason Sudeikis is aware that fans want more.
For the program’s creators, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly, “I can’t help but take the question as flattery for what all of us that were working on the show have tried to do,” as quoted by Deadline. The fact that people want more, even if it’s a new path, is beautiful. You never know what’s going to happen when you develop stuff, so it’s very kind of them to even consider it.
Fans of the Apple TV+ comedy instantly warmed up to Sudeikis’ likable character Lasso and the rest of the stellar ensemble after its first airing in August 2020. Actor Jason Sudeikis has referred to his fellow Ted Lasso cast members as his “chosen family,” and several of his co-stars have said similar things.
Upon learning of her Emmy nomination, she said, “I’m just grateful that I get to go through this experience with an extraordinary team of people, who all got recognition. The fact that we just all got these nominations, is the greatest way it could happen because it’s teamwork that makes the dream work, and we’re a team.”
Brett Goldstein, who won the 2022 Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, said, “Let’s be honest, I’m basically the most supported actor. I don’t do much. I’m just surrounded by an amazing cast.” Hannah Waddingham, who won the 2022 SAG Award for best ensemble cast, gleefully called herself and her co-stars a “gaggle of idiots.”
The cast of Ted Lasso paid a visit to the White House in March 2023, only days after the season 3 debut. Sudeikis addressed the press after discussing mental health with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.
“No matter who you are, where you live, or who you voted for, we all know someone who has struggled, felt isolated, anxious, or alone,” he said. I think it’s important for everyone to pitch in and help take care of one another.
Learn more about the cast of Ted Lasso and what makes them so endearing to not just each other but also to viewers.
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Hannah Waddingham portrays Rebecca Welton
Hannah Waddingham was raised in a musical family in London since both her mother and paternal grandmother were accomplished opera singers. The celebrity was a seasoned performer on the British West End stage (and on Broadway in Spamalot) when she landed the part of Rebecca Welton, the team owner, on Ted Lasso.
Waddingham has already starred in two other popular programs before her Ted Lasso role. Waddingham has appeared in a number of films and television shows, including the HBO hit Game of Thrones, where she played the much-mocked “Shame Nun” Septa Unella for two seasons, Netflix’s Sex Education, in which she plays Jackson’s mother, and Hocus Pocus 2, in which she had a small role alongside the classic Sanderson sisters Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, and Kathy Najimy.
Her portrayal of Rebecca is her most prominent to date, and Waddingham hasn’t been coy about how much of an impact Ted Lasso has had on her. Waddingham, who was nominated for best supporting actress in a comedy series, thanked Sudeikis again as tears streamed down her face as she accepted the award.
“Jason, you have transformed my life with this, and more importantly, my baby girl’s. Honestly, I am so honored to work with you. “This single parent wouldn’t be standing here without you,” she stated before praising her fellow London theater actors and advocating for greater movie time for West End musical artists. If you give us a chance, we won’t disappoint you.
Although she enjoys the work, Waddingham joked that Sudeikis is a “nightmare” because he always makes her laugh during filming when her character is supposed to be straitlaced. This is especially true of the episode “No Weddings and a Funeral,” which she filmed while her own father was undergoing heart surgery.
Just picture myself in the role of Rebecca, where I’m expected to portray the icy antagonist. Just picture acting with Jason sporting that pixie look in his eye. He’s the worst! She said, “And so is Nick Mohammed,” to the extent that “when Nick Mohammed and I have to do scenes together in Season 2,” we have to slightly stare off the side of one another’s faces.
Almost everyone, including Waddingham, hopes that Ted Lasso will continue indefinitely. She previously told Entertainment Tonight that if she were Apple and Warner Bros., she would “lean on [Sudeikis] like a lunatic and put him in a corner in a little cage and give him a notebook and a pen” if season 3 were the last. The beauty is overwhelming.
Brett Goldstein plays Roy Kent
Brett Goldstein, the breakthrough star of Ted Lasso, always knew he’d be an actor or comedian; he started writing and performing plays at an early age and had his first taste of the stage while studying cinema at the University of Warwick.
During this period, he also experimented with a career as a stuntman, saying, “I used to pretend to be Indiana Jones and jump off roofs and slide under garage doors.” I was 29 years old, a source confirmed.
Goldstein wrote and starred in the romantic comedy short SuperBob, which caught the attention of Ricky Gervais and led to an audition and the role of Tom in Gervais’ TV show Derek in 2012. This opened up more doors, and Goldstein eventually landed a writing gig on Ted Lasso, where he so identified with the character of Roy Kent that he recorded his own audition videos.
Goldstein has appeared as Hercules in a post-credit cameo in Thor: Love and Thunder, and he is also the co-creator of the AMC series Soulmates and the host of the podcast Films to Be Buried With.
Goldstein informed The Sunday Times, as Ted Lasso was coming to a close, what the program meant to him, if not to the public as a whole, despite his many accomplishments and awards.
“I can’t speak for fans,” he said, “but I can speak about how it has shaped us.” Ted embodies our finest qualities and strives to bring them out in us.
Juno Temple as Keeley Jones
Keeley Jones, played by Juno Temple, is based on Temple’s real-life former co-star on Ted Lasso, Keeley Hazell. Keeley begins as a model but quickly rises through the ranks to become the team’s press and marketing manager.
Born and raised in London, Temple began her acting career at the tender age of eight in her father’s film Vigo: A Passion for Life, and then again under her father’s direction in his next film, Pandaemonium, when she was twelve.
Among her many film credits are The Dark Knight Rises, Maleficent, and its sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, as well as the critically acclaimed Atonement and the critically panned Notes on a Scandal, both of which she appeared in as a teenager.
Temple has found success on television with appearances in shows including HBO’s short-lived Vinyl and Dirty John, but she is most recognized for her portrayal of Keeley, for which she received an Emmy nomination.
Temple thanked the cast and crew of Ted Lasso, whom she called her “second family,” in an interview for the 2021 Emmys, but she also expressed some trepidation about the show’s success.
I never predicted it would be in my life.” It’s a terrifying and intimidating prospect. I’m very lucky to have found a career I like. I feel like I always want to improve my skills and become even more proficient at what I do.
Goldstein praised Temple at the March 2022 ceremony when he accepted the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, saying, “Acting with Juno is like doing a scene with pure light.”
In the wake of the third and final season of Ted Lasso, Temple will take the lead in a future installment of Fargo.
Actor Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard
Brendan Hunt, who stars as Coach Beard and serves as an executive producer on Ted Lasso, co-created the character with Sudeikis for the NBC Sports shorts. While living in Amsterdam with series co-creator Joe Kelly, Hunt taught Sudeikis about soccer by playing FIFA on PlayStation in between improv gigs with the Boom Chicago troupe, which was based in Amsterdam.
Hunt told The Daily Beast in 2020, “I’ve been soccer-translating for Jason for a long-ass time. “Because once I got into soccer, it was done. That’s why I had to be crazy. It was insane, and so I joined the missionary ranks.
LA Weekly reports that after returning to the United States, Hunt created and starred in a one-man show about his experiences as an American living abroad, followed by Absolutely Filthy, about an adult Pig Pen from Peanuts. Hunt has also appeared on Key & Peele, Reno 911!, Community, Parks & Recreation, and alongside Sudeikis in Horrible Bosses 2 and We’re the Millers.
A Ted Lasso screenplay from the first season in which the title character gives a speech at the dartboard, quoting Walt Whitman and urging everyone to “be curious, not judgmental,” especially moves Hunt.
Hunt told The Daily Beast, “One thing that being curious and not judgmental does is that it has an ancillary effect of reminding you that a lot of anger isn’t really worth it.” Some is deserved, and some are earned. However, this is seldom the case. And it’s often unhealthy to boot.
Hunt’s appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy! before Ted Lasso’s last season won $35,600, the greatest Coryat score (total wins excluding wagers) in the series and the 22nd-highest Coryat score of all Jeopardy! episodes across all of the show’s spinoffs.
Even though Ted Lasso is ending, Hunt told Deadline that he has discussed the possibility of more Coach Beard in the future. “It would be all about Beard in a new band he starts, and they go to a different tropical location each episode,” Hunt said. “I talked to Tim Cook about it, and he’s pretty excited, so I think that’s going to happen.”
As Nathan “Nate the Great” Shelley, Nick Mohammed plays him.
While Nick Mohammed became a household name across the world with his breakthrough role as Nathan “Nate the Great” Shelley in Ted Lasso, he has been a staple of British comedy for almost a decade.
Before becoming a professional magician at the age of 16, Mohammed took up the violin and piano. He then became president of the Bradford Magic Circle and regularly performs with the organization to this day.
Mohammed then went on to study geophysics at England’s Durham University, where he was turned down for membership in the school’s sketch comedy troupe, the Durham Revue, though he soon realized he didn’t need them after all. While pursuing a doctorate in seismology at Cambridge’s Magdalene College, Mohammed also became a member of the Footlights theater troupe and began touring with them.
In 2005, Mohammed performed a one-man show called Back In Town Again: Waltzing Out of Town at The Fringe Festival; among the three people in attendance was an agent with whom he continues to work today. Since then, Mohammed has performed several other solo shows at the festival, including The Forer Factor (2006), Four Quarters (2007), Nick Mohammed Is A Character Comedian (2008), and Apollo 21 (2009).
In the years after signing with an agent, Mohammed appeared on Life’s Too Short, The King Is Dead, and the sketch comedy program Sorry I’ve Got Not Head on television, and on BBC Radio 4’s Quarters and Nick Mohammed In Bits on the radio.
His first major role was as Tim Grimes in 2015’s The Martian, and he followed that up with Bridget Jones’ Baby the following year. In 2018, Mohammed voiced Piglet in Disney’s live-action Christopher Robin, but his breakthrough role didn’t come until 2020, when he costarred with Friends star David Schwimmer in Intelligence on Sky One. Season two aired in 2021.
Although he didn’t relocate specifically for the show, Mohammed is now a resident in the same area of London as Ted Lasso.
“It’s a weird old thing getting recognized and definitely something I’m still getting used to,” he said to The Guardian about adapting to worldwide celebrity. “Lots of people are pretty angry with Nate too, given how the last season of Ted Lasso ended, so managing that has been fun.”
The character of Nate allowed him to showcase his acting range over the course of the series.
“It was fun in the sense that, as an actor, you relish the opportunity to try something different,” he said. “It was certainly challenging in that if I had a comfort area, it was in doing the slightly bumbling, awkward Nate, which I was able to find my way through a lot easier because there were lots of jokes written into that.” It was difficult, especially in the second half of Season 2, since there were fewer and fewer planned jokes for Nate and a lot more emotional and dramatic situations for him.
And then to find myself the villain of the tale, second only to Rupert, the ultimate evil…,” he said. For sure, this is a great way to kick off season 3.
Jamie Tartt, played by Phil Dunster
As a youngster in Northampton, United Kingdom, Phil Dunster, who plays the abrasive but secretly vulnerable Jamie Tartt, envisioned a career in athletics, but not soccer.
“I think the first thing that I thought I would do as a career was a rugby player,” “I had a trial with a club, and it became very clear, very quickly that that wasn’t going to be what I would end up doing.” In terms of both size and strength, I was a complete and utter lightweight to play rugby at that level.
After failing to make it as a professional rugby player, Dunster considered following in the footsteps of his father and older brother by joining the military. However, after participating in a radio play at the age of 16, he decided to pursue acting instead and went on to earn a degree in acting from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2014.
His fiancée, the director Eleanor Hayden, and her mother influenced him to give Jamie a Manchester accent, as did the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis.
“They have a really nasal voice. For me, it’s just as much about attitude,” he added of the accent. “It’s like [everything] passes through the nose.” The dialect is clearly of urban origin. A native Manchesterian, he said, “So I was scared that their family was going to be disowning me, but they were kind of my cultural references. I’ve brought them along for the ride.
Sam Obisanya, portrayed by Toheeb Jimoh
Both Toheeb Jimoh, who plays star midfielder Sam Obisanya, and the character he portrays, who pursues a romantic relationship with Waddingham’s Rebecca despite their age and racial differences, reached a creative high point in the show’s second season.
Jimoh told Deadline, “Who they are as people is the most important thing; there’s so much that could have been drawn out or milked about the storyline where you have a young black athlete dating an older white woman.”
His character was originally scripted as being from Ghana, but was adjusted to fit his true Nigerian ethnicity; Jimoh was born in the United Kingdom, went to Nigeria when he was a toddler and returned to London’s Brixton area when he was seven years old.
Many people, I’m sure, underestimate my nationality as a Brit. But then it’s amusing when I travel to Nigeria and people look at me like I’m British because of the way I sound,” Jimoh told British GQ. “There are moments when you sort of feel like you slip in between that split. There has been a revival of folks my age who define themselves as Black British in their own unique way. That’s about where I ended up.
Jimoh played Anthony Walker in Anthony, a fictionalized account of Walker’s life if he hadn’t perished in a racist attack in 2005, in the United Kingdom in 2020, before making his breakthrough on a global scale in Ted Lasso in 2021, according to the BBC. His subsequent screen work, The Feed on Prime Video, and his role as Sam in Ted Lasso propelled him to fame in the United States and beyond.
Fans of Ted Lasso have found it interesting to see Jimoh play soccer in real life, just like he does on the show.
He told Deadline that the show’s fans are “really heartwarming people who just want to show you love and they’re proud of your journey,” and that they enjoy watching him play soccer with his pals because they want to know “if I’m really any good” and “if the stunts on the show are CGI or not.”
Jimoh reflected on his relationships with his co-stars in March 2023.
“It’s true; we’ve become close. “I believe a lot of it was because, in season 2, we were filming during a pandemic, and I think you can see by the way we interact with one another everywhere we go, that there’s a real, genuine connection between all of us. Once upon a time, society prevented individuals from interacting with one another. We may have rescued each other, thank goodness.
Sarah Niles plays Dr. Sharon Fieldstone
Sarah Niles’ performance as sports psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone in Season 2 of Ted Lasso got her a nod for the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but it wasn’t her first time appearing in a highly regarded TV show.
Niles is perhaps most remembered for her role as the no-nonsense psychotherapist, but she has also acted in The Sandman as Rosemary and starred in the drama series Riches in 2022.
Niles’s agency contacted her during the COVID-19 epidemic to feature her in Season 2, but she hadn’t watched the first season, and thus she wasn’t familiar with the program despite being a perfect foil for the show’s lead character.
According to her recollection in The New York Times, “this just kind of landed in my lap,” and after watching the performance, she prayed, “Please, dear God, I need to get this job.” I really need to get this position.
Niles told The Hollywood Reporter that Dr. Fieldstone was “one of the hardest roles” she has ever played because of the contrast between her character’s relative stoicism and Ted Lasso’s continual enthusiasm.
“I feel like there’s so much more I can do, and I’m really excited,” she added. “I love that character, and she’s taught me to trust in myself, warts and all.”
Dani Rojas, portrayed by Cristo Fernández
Cristo Fernández, who plays a soccer player on Ted Lasso, really used to play professional football. He started out with the Guadalajara Estudiantes Tecos Club of the Mexican League when he was only 15 years old.
‘Cristóbal just speaks, breathes, talks, everything fútbol,’ my grandmother and mother used to say,’ Soccer was truly my life,’ he said in an interview with NBC News.
At the University of Guadalajara, he studied screenwriting and found himself acting in his own projects when he couldn’t find anyone else to star in his videos. Soon, he was acting in the films of his fellow students as well. After graduating, he moved to England to earn his master’s degree and worked as a bartender to make ends meet.
Telling NBC, “There was no role for a Mexican [in England],” he said, “The only professional job I booked before Ted Lasso was playing a Mexican wrestler on a TV commercial, so I had to think about script ideas involving a Mexican living in the U.K.”
He praised Season 3 of Ted Lasso as “worth the wait” and expressed gratitude for the connections he’s made on production, particularly with Sudeikis.
As he put it, “He’s very good, and what I realized is, we’ve become a family, and they encourage that vibe, that environment, to keep it there,” and he attributed it to the “spirit of Ted Lasso.” That is not lost on them. That, I believe, is a key factor in our success.
Leslie Higgins, played by Jeremy Swift
Although Jeremy Swift’s goofy British character Leslie Higgins is one of the show’s most upbeat characters with Ted Lasso, Swift is most known for playing the austere butler Septimus Spratt on another popular series.
He told Vulture, “I love that, because I love characters,” when fans didn’t recognize him in both parts. I find great joy in being able to indulge in this activity. I know it doesn’t accomplish anything for my career, but I really like it when people don’t recognize me from one role to the next.
Mary Roscoe, Swift’s real-life wife, portrays Julie Higgins, Higgins’s wife, in the film Ted Lasso. Roscoe had previously auditioned for a small role named Old Lady but was not cast in the role.
“We kind of forgot about it, but a few weeks later Bill came up to me and asked if I’d worked with my wife before, and if so, did we get along,” Swift, who met his wife on a previous project, recalled to Vulture. “I was trying to play it cool, like, ‘Oh yeah, whatever, catch you later.’ But inside I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing! “
Ted Lasso, played by Jason Sudeikis
Daniel Jason Sudeikis, who was born in Fairfax, Virginia, and is the nephew of Cheers actor George Wendt, began his career in the entertainment industry as an improved performer with the Second City. In 2003, Saturday Night Live recruited him as a writer. In 2005, Sudeikis joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and quickly became a fan favorite because of his portrayals of Joe Biden and Mitt Romney, as well as his appearances on “Weekend Update” as the Devil.
After leaving Saturday Night Live in 2013, Sudeikis went on to feature in films including Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2, and We’re the Millers, as well as the highly praised films Colossal (with Oscar winner Anne Hathaway), Downsizing, Sleeping With Other People, and his then-fiancee Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart in 2019. (He and Wilde, who had a child together named Daisy and another named Otis, are no longer together.)
Sudeikis performed the part of Ted Lasso seven years before the show’s 2020 launch in NBC Sports promotional ads. Although Sudeikis had the initial idea for the program, he says that Wilde was instrumental in helping him bring his creation to fruition. After thanking his kids at the March 2021 Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series and Best Comedy Series, Sudeikis added, “I want to thank their mom Olivia, who had the initial idea to do this as a TV show, saying, ‘You and Brendan [Hunt] and Joe [Kelly] like doing that so much, you should do it as a movie or TV show.’ She was right.”
In October 2021, Sudeikis hosted SNL again, when he joked that all it took to catch the attention of SNL’s founder and executive producer, Lorne Michaels, was a very popular television series.
“I found myself giving the same advice to everyone,” Sudeikis remarked. For example: “I was just like, you know, ‘Win an Emmy! And if you can, win two!’ You know, double up. That’s the best way to do it. It sets you up for success.”
Two additional Emmys have been bestowed on Sudeikis for his depiction of the show’s devoted protagonist. The actor recently quipped to Deadline, “I mean, there’s always Cameo, right?” when asked whether he had any intentions to continue playing Ted Lasso after the series finale.
