Hannah Waddingham didn't expect to land her Ted Lasso role, admits she's not really a soccer fan

Los Angeles Times

“I first thought, ‘Well, I can go along and enjoy this audition, because I know I’m never going to get it because it’s a honey of a role,’” Waddingham, who prefers rugby over soccer, tells the Los Angeles Times with a laugh. “I went in very calmly, thinking they were going to get some big old starry person. Warner Bros. flew me out to have a chemistry read with Jason (Sudeikis), and I went even more into my own head and was saying to my rep, ‘Don’t tell me who is going to be in the room.’ I’m an old-fashioned theater girl, that’s where I come from, and it has to be about genuine chemistry. It had to be about where Rebecca collides with Ted at this point in their lives. Thankfully, it worked.” Waddingham adds that Ted Lasso has completely changed her relationship to the camera. “Ever since I started playing roles like Septa Unella on Game of Thrones — you couldn’t get a more raw-looking, grim mess — I learned to enjoy letting the camera in,” she says. “Even if the character is glamorous, like Rebecca is, I enjoy the moments when the façade comes down. I think it’s OK to be vulnerable on camera, because there are so many people watching who will see parts of themselves. That’s a real privilege to then receive messages from people saying, ‘Thank you for letting us in.’ And it’s my pleasure, because there’s a catharsis in it for me too.”