The Cast of 'Ted Lasso': Everything to Know

Ted Lasso is coming to a close with Season 3, but star Jason Sudeikis knows we all want more.

"I can't help but take the question as flattery for what all of us that were working on the show has tried to do," Sudeikis, who co-created the series with Brendan Hunt and Joe Kelly, told Deadline. "It's really kind of folks to even consider that because you never know what's gonna happen when you make things. The fact that people want more, even if it's a different avenue, is lovely."

The Apple TV+ series first premiered in August 2020 and viewers quickly became attached to Sudeikis' affable character Lasso, as well as the supporting acts that round out the star-studded cast. Similarly, the actors and actresses on the project developed quite a bond with one another — Sudeikis has called his Ted Lasso castmates his "chosen family," and several others have echoed his sentiment.

Upon learning the news of her Emmy nomination in July 2021, Juno Temple told PEOPLE, "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, it's the greatest way it could happen because it's teamwork makes the dream work and we're a team."

Rich Fury/Getty Cast of Ted Lasso, from L: Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham, Jason Sudeikis, Juno Temple, Nick Mohammed and Brendan Hunt

Meanwhile, when accepting the 2022 SAG Award for best ensemble cast, Hannah Waddingham joyfully called herself and her castmates a "gaggle of idiots." And when Brett Goldstein won the 2022 Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, he told the crowd, "Let's be honest, I'm basically the most supported actor. Like, I don't do much. I'm just surrounded by an amazing cast."

In March 2023, a few days after the premiere of season 3, several members of the Ted Lasso cast visited the White House. They spoke with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden about the importance of mental health, and Sudeikis addressed the press in the briefing room.

"No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter who you voted for, we all — probably, I assume — we all know someone who has ... struggled, that's felt isolated, that's felt anxious, that's felt alone," he said. "I truly believe that we should all do our best to help take care of each other."

Ahead, get to know the stars of Ted Lasso and exactly why they're so beloved, not just by one another, but by audiences as well.

Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso

Apple TV+

Born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Va., Sudeikis, nephew of Cheers star George Wendt, got his start in showbiz performing improv with Second City. He was hired as a writer for Saturday Night Live in 2003. Two years later, in 2005, Sudeikis joined the SNL cast, often playing Joe Biden and Mitt Romney and appearing in "Weekend Update" segments as the Devil.

After leaving SNL in 2013, Sudeikis starred in Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2 and We're the Millers, as well as critically acclaimed 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 share daughter Daisy and son Otis, have since split.)

Though Ted Lasso didn't premiere until August 2020, Sudeikis actually played the role seven years earlier in NBC Sports promo videos. The show is largely Sudeikis' brainchild, and he credits Wilde with encouraging him to pursue the beloved series he created. While accepting the Critics' Choice Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series and Best Comedy Series in March 2021, Sudeikis thanked his children and 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 returned to his roots on the SNL stage as a host, reminiscing about his time on the NBC stalwart and joking that all it took to get SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels to notice him was a mega-successful TV show..

"Honestly, honestly, swear to God, I found myself giving the same advice to every single person," Sudeikis said. "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."

Sudeikis has since won two more Emmys for the show and his portrayal as the earnest title character. As for his plans to continue portraying Ted Lasso after the series wraps up, the actor recently joked to Deadline: "I mean, there's always Cameo, right?"

Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton

Apple TV+

Hannah Waddingham was born in London and grew up around music (her mother and maternal grandparents were professional opera singers). The star was a veteran actress and singer on the West End stage in her native Britain (and on Broadway in Spamalot) before landing the female lead role of Rebecca Welton, team owner, on Ted Lasso.

Prior to her Ted Lasso screen star turn, Waddingham actually had memorable, if brief, parts on two other hit series. In Game of Thrones, Waddingham played the much-memed "Shame Nun" Septa Unella in the HBO smash for two seasons; she also appears as Jackson's mother in Netflix's Sex Education and had a small role in Hocus Pocus 2 alongside the classic Sanderson sisters Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy.

Her role of Rebecca has been her biggest yet, and Waddingham has made no secret about how life-changing Ted Lasso has been for her. While accepting the Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series, a tearful Waddingham thanked Sudeikis profusely.

"Jason, you've changed my life with this and more importantly my baby girl's. Honestly, I'm so privileged to work with you. "This single mum wouldn't be standing here without you," she said before shouting out her fellow London stage stars. "West End musical performers need to be on screen more. Please give them a chance 'cause we won't let you down."

Part of why Waddingham loves the role so much is how close to home it's hit for her, especially in the episode "No Weddings and a Funeral," which she filmed while her own father was undergoing heart surgery in real life. While she appreciates 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.

"Imagine playing Rebecca, where I'm meant to be this stoic ice queen. Imagine doing scenes when Jason has got the cheeky little pixie going on in his eye. He's a nightmare! And so is Nick Mohammed," she added, "to the point where in Season 2 when Nick Mohammed and I have to do scenes together, we have to slightly look off the side of each other's faces."

Like almost the entire rest of the world, Waddingham wishes Ted Lasso could go on forever. She previously told Entertainment Tonight of season 3 being the end of the road, "If I were Apple and Warner Bros., I'd be leaning on [Sudeikis] like a lunatic and putting him in a corner in a little cage and giving him a notebook and a pen. It's too beautiful."

Brett Goldstein as Roy Kent

Apple TV+

Ted Lasso breakout star Brett Goldstein knew from a young age that he wanted to be an entertainer. He began writing and performing plays when he was young and got his first taste of theater while studying film at the University of Warwick, all while still writing and performing his own material.

During that time, he also tried his hand at being a stuntman. "I used to pretend to be Indiana Jones and jump off roofs and slide under garage doors. I was 29 at the time," he previously told PEOPLE.

Goldstein wrote and performed in a short romantic comedy called SuperBob, which caught the attention of Ricky Gervais, leading to an audition and then the part of Tom in Gervais' TV show Derek in 2012. That opened more doors, eventually landing him a writing gig on Ted Lasso. He felt such a connection with the character of Roy Kent that he recorded his own audition videos for the part, obviously eventually landing it.

In addition to his work on Ted Lasso, Goldstein is co-creator of AMC's Soulmates and has his own podcast, Films to Be Buried With — and he made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Hercules in a post-credit scene in Thor: Love and Thunder.

Even with all of these well-deserved credits, Roy Kent remains the character for which Goldstein is best known. With Ted Lasso wrapping up, he told The Sunday Times what the show really means to him, if not necessarily for audiences.

"I can't speak for fans," he said. "But I can speak about how it has shaped us. Ted is our best selves — he tries to bring out our best selves."

Juno Temple as Keeley Jones

Apple TV+

Juno Temple stars as Keeley Jones, a character somewhat loosely based on her real-life former Ted Lasso costar Keeley Hazell. In the series, Keeley is a model who becomes the team's publicity and marketing manager before she moves on and starts her own PR and marketing agency.

Temple, the daughter of director Julian Temple and producer Amanda Pirie, is a London-born and bred actor who got her start as a child. When she was 8 years old, she appeared in the film Vigo: A Passion for Life; three years later her father directed her in Pandaemonium.

When Temple was a teen, she was acclaimed for her role as Polly in Notes on a Scandal alongside Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench; she followed with the critical darling Atonement. Temple had small and supporting roles in blockbusters The Dark Knight Rises, Maleficent and its sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, as well as Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Television is where Temple has found starring roles thanks to series including HBO's short-lived Vinyl and Dirty John, though she's best known for Keeley, earning an Emmy nomination for her sensitive and nuanced take on the character.

Ahead of the 2021 Emmys, Temple said she was grateful for the Ted Lasso team and her costars, calling them her "second family," but that she was also apprehensive about the fame she garnered from the show.

"I'm scared of all this s---," she told PEOPLE. "It's something I never predicted would be in my life. It is daunting and it is scary. I just love my job so much. It feels like, I just want to keep being better and better at my job."

When costar Goldstein won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in March 2022, he gave Temple a sweet shoutout, telling the crowd, "Acting with Juno is like doing a scene with pure light."

After Ted Lasso's third and final season, Temple will star in an upcoming season of Fargo.

Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard

Apple TV+

Brendan Hunt stars as Coach Beard and serves as an executive producer on Ted Lasso after co-creating the character in the NBC Sports shorts where Sudeikis first played the role. He taught Sudeikis about soccer while living in Amsterdam with series co-creator Joe Kelly, playing FIFA on PlayStation between improv gigs when their Boom Chicago troupe was based in the Netherlands city.

"I've been soccer-translating for Jason for a long-ass time," Hunt told The Daily Beast in 2020. "Because once I got into soccer, it was over. I was nuts. It was crazy and I became a missionary."

Upon returning to the United States, Hunt developed and starred in a one-man show about living as an American overseas, followed by Absolutely Filthy, based on a grown-up Pig Pen from Peanuts, according to LA Weekly. In addition to theater work, Hunt starred in Key & Peele and appeared in Reno 911!, Community, Parks and Recreation and alongside Sudeikis in Horrible Bosses 2 and We're the Millers before launching Ted Lasso with Sudeikis and Kelly.

One Ted Lasso script that resonates particularly strongly for Hunt is the season 1 speech the title character gives at the dartboard, where he quotes Walt Whitman and encourages everyone to "be curious, not judgmental."

"One thing that being curious and not judgmental does is it has an ancillary effect of reminding you that a lot of anger isn't really worth it," Hunt told The Daily Beast. "Of course, there's some that is. There's some that's been earned. But a lot of times it's not. And a lot of times it's just bad for you."

Ahead of Ted Lasso's final season, Hunt appeared on Celebrity Jeopardy! and earned the highest Coryat score (total winnings excluding wagers) in the entire series with a sum of $35,600. It was also the 22nd-highest Coryat score out of all Jeopardy! episodes from across all of the show's spinoffs.

Though Ted Lasso is coming to an end, Hunt joked to Deadline that there could be 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," he said. "I talked to Tim Cook about and he's pretty excited so I think that's going to happen."

Nick Mohammed as Nathan "Nate the Great" Shelley

Apple TV+

Nick Mohammed gained international acclaim when he debuted as Nathan "Nate the Great" Shelley in Ted Lasso, but he's been a beloved comedy fixture in his native U.K. for more than a decade.

Mohammed studied violin and piano as a child, then became a professional magician at age 16. He served as president of the Bradford Magic Circle for the 2008-2009 period and still performs with the group.

He then majored in geophysics at Durham University in England; he was rejected from the school's sketch comedy troupe the Durham Revue — but as it turns out, he wouldn't need them anyway. While studying for his seismology Ph.D. at Cambridge University's Magdalene College, Mohammed joined the Footlights theater troupe and began performing gigs on tour with the group.

Mohammed then ventured into solo performances, including a one-man show at The Fringe Festival in 2005 called Back In Town Again: - Waltzing out of town. Out of just three audience members, one was an agent, with whom Mohammed still works today. He's performed several more solo shows since at the festival, including The Forer Factor (2006), 4uarters (2007), Nick Mohammed Is A Character Comedian (2008) and Apollo 21 (2009).

After signing with his agent, Mohammed began working in television with roles in series like Life's Too Short and The King Is Dead and sketch show Sorry I've Got Not Head, as well as in radio on BBC Radio 4's Quarters and Nick Mohammed In Bits.

His first mainstream feature film debut came in 2015's The Martian as Tim Grimes, followed by Bridget Jones' Baby a year later. In 2018, Mohammed voiced Piglet in Disney's live-action Christopher Robin, but his major breakthrough came two years later. In 2020, he not only starred as Nate, but also costarred with Friends star David Schwimmer in Intelligence on Sky One; a second season aired in 2021. Deadline reports that he'll next appear as a wise-cracking cop in Maggie Moore(s) with Tina Fey and Jon Hamm.

Mohammed lives in London's Richmond neighborhood, where Ted Lasso is based, but didn't move there for the series.

"It's a weird old thing getting recognized and definitely something I'm still getting used to," he told The Guardian of adjusting to global fame. "Lots of people are pretty angry with Nate too, given how the last season of Ted Lasso ended — so managing that has been fun."

Mohammed told PEOPLE that Nate's arc in the series gave him lots of opportunities to stretch his acting chops.

"It was fun in a sense that, as an actor, you relish an 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 that a lot easier because there were lots of jokes written into that. But then increasingly in Season 2, there were less written jokes for Nate and a lot more emotional dramatic driven plots for him, and particularly the latter half of Season 2, so it was definitely challenging."

He added, "And then to find myself be the villain of the piece, I guess second to Rupert, who's the ultimate villain ... it's a fun place to start season 3 from, that's for sure."

Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt

Apple TV+

When Phil Dunster, who stars as the obnoxious but inwardly vulnerable Jamie Tartt, was a kid growing up in Northampton, U.K., he thought sports were in his future — but not soccer.

"I think the first thing that I thought I would go and do as a career was a rugby player," he told PEOPLE. "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. I was far too small and far too much of a lightweight, both mentally and physically, to play rugby at that level."

When rugby didn't pan out, Dunster considered following in the footsteps of his father and older brother and enlisting in the military, but that changed when he was 16 and got his first taste of acting in a radio play. He got his first professional screen acting credit in a small role in the 2013 film The Film-Maker's Son and graduated with an acting degree from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School the following year. He's appeared in several movies, including Megan Leavey, Murder on the Orient Express, Judy and The Good Liar, as well as in U.K. series Humans and Strike Back. His only comedy experience before Ted Lasso was two episodes of Catastrophe.

Dunster told PEOPLE that he gave Jamie a Manchester accent in part thanks to inspiration from his girlfriend, filmmaker Eleanor Hayden, and her mother, as well as brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

"It's quite nasally when they talk. It's like [everything] goes through the nose," he said of the accent. "For me, it's just as much about attitude. The accent, it's an inner-city accent. It has to be quick." He added, "My girlfriend's mom is born and raised in Manchester, and so I was worried that their family is going to be disowning me, but they were part of sort of my cultural references. I've put them in the boat with me."

Toheeb Jimoh as Sam Obisanya

Apple TV+

Toheeb Jimoh plays star midfielder Sam Obisanya on Ted Lasso. Season 2 was a major breakthrough for both Jimoh and his character, as he pursued a romantic relationship with Waddingham's Rebecca despite their differences in age and race — and both of those differences faded into the background as the series simply focused on who they are as individuals.

"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, and that just isn't important," Jimoh told Deadline. "Who they are as people is the most important thing."

Jimoh was born in the U.K., but moved to Nigeria when he was a baby, returning to London's Brixton neighborhood when he was seven years old. His character was initially written to be from Ghana, but it was changed to match his actual Nigerian heritage.

"A lot of people probably diminish my Britishness. But then it's funny sometimes when I go to Nigeria, people look at me as though I'm British because of the way I sound," Jimoh told British GQ. "There are times where you kind of feel like you fall in between that crack. With my generation, there's a real resurgence of people who make being Black British its own thing. That's kind of where I found myself."

In 2020, prior to his global breakout in Ted Lasso, Jimoh had a star turn in the U.K. as Anthony Walker in Anthony, a reimagining of Walker's life had he not been murdered in a 2005 racist attack, per the BBC. His next screen effort was The Feed on Prime Video, followed by the role of Sam, which made him a star on both sides of the pond and beyond.

As a soccer lover, Jimoh plays off-screen as well, and it's proven to be entertaining to Ted Lasso viewers who spot him in real life.

"The fans that you get from the show are really heartwarming people who just want to show you love and they're proud of your journey," he told Deadline, adding that fans often like watching him play soccer with his friends. "They stand and watch to see if I'm really any good and to see if the stunts on the show are CGI or not."

In March 2023, Jimoh, spoke about the friendships he's made with the rest of the cast.

"We really have bonded. I think you can tell from the way we interact with each other, wherever we go, that there's a real genuine connection between all of us," Jimoh told PEOPLE. "I think a lot of that was, on season 2, we were filming during a pandemic. There was a time where people couldn't be around each other. Thankfully, I think we all saved each other."

Cristo Fernández as Dani Rojas

Apple TV+

Cristo Fernández doesn't just play a soccer player on Ted Lasso — he's a former pro footballer. Fernández began playing for the Mexican League's Guadalajara Estudiantes Tecos Club when he was just 15 years old. A career-ending injury, however, forced him to pivot his goals.

"My grandma and my mom used to say, 'Cristóbal only speaks, breaths, talks, dreams, everything fútbol' — soccer was literally my life," he told NBC News.

He began studying screenwriting at the University of Guadalajara, which led to him acting in his projects simply because he couldn't find anyone else to act in his videos — and he quickly began acting in other students' films as well. When he graduated, he moved to England to pursue his master's degree and worked as a bartender to make ends meet. He acted in small indies but didn't find much work in the U.K. before landing the role of Dani Rojas.

"There was no role for a Mexican [in England]," he told NBC. "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 previously told PEOPLE that Ted Lasso Season 3 is "worth the wait" and that he's very thankful for the friendships he's cultivated on set, especially with Sudeikis.

"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," he said. "And I think it's the spirit of Ted Lasso. They understand that. And I think that's part of the success."

Sarah Niles as Dr. Sharon Fieldstone

Apple TV+

Sarah Niles earned an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her Season 2 arc in Ted Lasso as sports psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone — but it wasn't the first time she'd appeared in a critically acclaimed series.

Niles starred in three episodes of Micaela Coel's I May Destroy You as Officer Funmi, appeared in The Sandman as Rosemary and, in 2022, starred in the drama series Riches. Still, she's likely best known for her straight-talking shrink.

Despite being a superb foil for the title character on the show, Niles was actually a late convert to Ted Lasso, having not seen the first season before her agent approached her during the COVID-19 pandemic to star in Season 2.

"This just kind of landed on my lap," she recalled to The New York Times. "And then when I watched the show, I was like: 'Please, dear God, I need to get this job. I need to get this job.' "

Niles told The Hollywood Reporter that her character's relative stoicism proved to be a challenge when juxtaposed with Ted Lasso's constant cheer, calling Dr. Fieldstone "one of the hardest roles" she ever played — but well worth it.

"I love that character, and she's taught me to trust in myself, warts and all," she said. "I feel like there's so much more I can do, and I'm really excited."

Jeremy Swift as Leslie Higgins

Apple TV+

Jeremy Swift's bumbling Brit Leslie Higgins is one of the series' most positive characters outside of Ted Lasso himself, but Swift previously played a much more stern character on another beloved show: He was butler Septimus Spratt in Downton Abbey.

Acknowledging that fans sometimes don't realize he's played both roles, he told Vulture, "I love that, because I love characters. That's what I love to do. It probably doesn't help my career, but I personally love that people don't recognize me from one thing to another."

Swift's real-life wife, Mary Roscoe, plays Higgins' wife Julie in Ted Lasso. She originally auditioned for a bit part called Old Lady and didn't get it, then read for several others.

"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!' "