‘Ted Lasso’ Scores Big In Season 3 As Its Cast Discusses What It Means To Believe

It has been 18 months since we last saw new episodes of the hit series Ted Lasso, but the Apple TV+ comedy is back for its third season starting March 15 and it is ready to score big on our hearts all over again.

Starring a talented ensemble cast that includes Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple, Brendan Hunt, Jeremy Swift and Nick Mohammed, Ted Lasso follows the fictional lives of London’s AFC Richmond football (better known as soccer to Americans) club, as each of them strive to best navigate in their decision-making, both on and off the field.

Ted Lasso remains a true team effort in more ways than one. The scripted series won the Screen Actors Guild award in 2022 for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, it won back-to-back Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series for the first two seasons, as well as many other major awards since the series premiered back in August 2020.

Arriving on our television screens during a time in the early Covid-19 pandemic when many of us were yearning for hope and human connection, Ted Lasso continues to lead with a winning sense of compassion in its powerful storytelling, its thoughtfully-executed development of diverse characters and its overall theme that reminds us all to “Believe.”

I recently sat down over Zoom with three of Ted Lasso’s gifted actors, Emmy winners Sudeikis, Waddingham and Goldstein, as we discussed this long-anticipated new season.

Sudeikis not only plays Richmond’s head coach and the show’s title character, he is also a producer, writer and one of the creators of Ted Lasso alongside Hunt, Bill Lawrence and Joe Kelly. I began my conversation with Sudeikis by asking him what he has enjoyed most throughout this project’s elaborate journey so far, going from its pilot episode to now being ready to unveil its third season to the world.

“I genuinely love watching the people we have on this show like just score – just kick ass,” Sudeikis told me. “I just watched the first two episodes [of season three] last night, just to remind myself because I’m editing the later episodes, and it’s not laborious at all. I go to work every day excited to watch these folks on the show. People behind-the-scenes, too. I get to see the people on-camera all day, every day, but I get work with [the] post-[production] team and just watching people care about this thing. The fact that it’s turned into all this, the way it’s changed all our lives in so many positive ways has been my favorite thing.”

Waddingham plays Rebecca on Ted Lasso, the owner of Richmond, who began the series as a rather tough-as-nails boss, but as her storyline has unfolded over these three seasons, she has gradually let her guard down and continues to grow beyond the insecurities that her ill-intentioned ex-husband left on her.

When I informed Waddingham that I have already had the joy of watching the first four episodes of Ted Lasso season three, she shared with me that she does not think she has ever cared so much about people being satisfied by what they, the cast and crew, are doing on this series.

As Rebecca looks to set her sights on life beyond football in this third season, including her ongoing search for love and the possibility of a family, I wondered what Waddingham has enjoyed most in seeing the evolution of her strong yet vulnerable leading character.

“First of all, it is my absolute greatest privilege to look after her, is how I see it,” Waddingham continued. “Secondly, the thing I love most about season three is that she’s still a little bit hot mess (laughs). I didn’t want her to be all sorted out and ‘Oh, this is the new me.’ She still has got something she needs to let go of and that is the human condition, isn’t it? I’d rather play her edges than her smooths.”

Goldstein plays the rather grumpy (yet oddly lovable) former Richmond footballer-turned-coach Roy Kent on Ted Lasso. He also continues to serve as a writer and producer on the series. So, what does he enjoy most about his often conflicted character as his storyline in season three kicks off?

“I just love playing Roy Kent,” Goldstein revealed to me. “It’s a weird thing to sort of analyze because I feel half-him and half-sort of protective of him. I have real love for Roy, and I feel quite sad for him a lot of the time. I don’t think he knows how to regulate his feelings. Feelings are new to him and I think they freak him out, and he doesn’t feel he deserves love or happiness. There’s something very tragic about it, but I love playing the part and I would happily do it for a long time.”

With Sudeikis having such an active hand in front of the camera, as well as behind-the-scenes, I was curious how he might say that his priorities have changed throughout the development of Ted Lasso, with these characters feeling like real people to many of us viewers.

“Yeah me too, man – I’m right there with you,” said Sudeikis. “I would say season one I was in 90% of the scenes, season two maybe 65% of the scenes. This season, I don’t know the metrics – we’re still going through it. That means more time on-set where I don’t have to like shave or go through hair & makeup, and just watching and supporting the writing and the acting, and supporting our directors and our fellow producers and all our crew. It’s a joyful process making this show and I’ve been lucky to be involved with many projects that have that type of spirit behind it, but this has probably been the most prime example of it manifesting and finding its way onto the screen.”

Sudeikis went on to tell me that the less he is on-camera, the more he actually has to work, something he said in a joking tone but it was clear that he meant it. “When my kids ask me ‘What does a producer do?’ I’m like he or she answers questions all day, every day, and I’m lucky that it’s something that I care so much about and I get to do it with people I care so much about.”

Now with 12 new episodes ahead of us for Ted Lasso’s third season on Apple TV+, I had to bring up the ever-inspiring sign that hangs above the coaches’ door in the Richmond locker room: “Believe.” I asked these three beloved stars from this ensemble cast what the term “Believe” means to them today, and if that definition has changed at all, following their experiences working on this award-winning series.

Waddingham revealed, “I would say that resonates with me in terms of my career, broadly speaking. I knew that I had something to offer on-screen, but it always eluded me. It’s why I said what I said at the Emmys, and I didn’t mean for it to fall out of my face, but the thing of it is allowing stage people onto screen. I had to believe in myself. I had to keep pushing, and it takes one person who also believes in you – that was Jason Sudeikis. For him to go No, let’s have a woman that’s 6’2” in heels, but you know what? She can be vulnerable, too. I was like ‘Yes! Yes! You see?’ Just because you look like you’re all together, externally, you can still be a bag of shitty old nerves inside. It was so amazing to be given that opportunity, and I did believe that it would come.”

Regarding his definition of “Believe,” Goldstein said, “I think some of these things happen by magic, and what I mean by that is Jason always had this thing of – and I don’t remember the exact quote but it’s something like When you’re making something, you do 90% of the work and then you leave 10% for God to come in the room. I think that’s kind of how Ted Lasso is made. Everyone works very hard on these scripts, very hard prepping everything, but then you leave a little bit of room for some magic to happen on-site. There’s this sign ‘Believe’ which is incredibly simple, and everyone watching it has a different feeling of what that means to them. If it was any longer like ‘Believe in Yourself,’ it would diminish how much that could mean, I think, and that it collectively grew in meaning, the more people put into it.”

Sudeikis concluded our conversation with, “I would say that ‘Believe’ for me means believe that everything happens for a reason. The good, we can accept that easily. Oh, I deserve this, I earned this, I wished for this as a kid – but you have to believe the bad stuff is for a reason, too. When you first get burned, it’s going to scab up, it’s going to look ugly, but then after a little bit of time, you might find out why you needed that callus on that finger or somewhere on your feet. Then the way I would say that it has changed for me, and I don’t know if it has changed as much as it’s re-affirmed the notion of believing in what you’re doing. Believe in the stories you’re telling, believe in the people you’ve charged with the responsibility to portray or make or write or direct or build props for – just believing in what you’re doing.”