SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 finale of Ted Lasso.
Apple’s hit comedy series Ted Lasso wrapped up its third season on Tuesday night and quite possibly the series as we’ve come to know it. But no matter what happens in the future, Hannah Waddingham is proud of all she accomplished as Rebecca Welton and how things ended for her character.
As we revealed in our recap, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) helps AFC Richmond win big against West Ham —mission complete. He moves forward with his plans to return to Kansas to reunite with his son Henry leaving Rebecca and most of the team in tears. But life goes on, as it does, and everything works out as it should.
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In the final moments of the episode, Rebecca was departing the airport sad after saying goodbye to Ted when she spots a young girl running outside of the terminal. When the girl trips and falls, Rebecca rushes to help. Just then, a worried dad makes his own dash for the wee lass. The dad is revealed to be a pilot who just so happens to be the stranger (Matteo van der Grijn) whose houseboat Rebecca spent time in while visiting Amsterdam. Boom! She gets her happy ending.
Waddingham spoke to Deadline on Wednesday about her journey as the popular character, why Roy Kent was the only one who could step in for Ted as the team’s manager and whether or not this is a goodbye for good.
DEADLINE: I’m torn between feeling so happy after seeing the finale and also being very, very sad. This felt like a goodbye. How are you feeling?
HANNAH WADDINGHAM: Well, you’ve just hit the nail on the head. I mean, imagine how strange it is for me when Rebecca is my girl. And it’s a very strange feeling to meet someone that is a fictional character that only exists in your own body.
DEADLINE: Can you think back to your first day on set? What has the journey been like from then to now?
WADDINGHAM: The only thing that was scary is everyone knows that with a pilot, they can still fire you after…Jason, he trusted me implicitly with who he had [Rebecca] in mind to be, and who I naturally played her as. And I said to him several times through Season 1 — and then it continued in 2 and 3 — there were situations that were brought onto Rebecca’s radar that I had lived in my own life. And I was like, ‘Dude, you got cameras in my life like The Truman Show.’ It was really uncanny sometimes, the similarities. I just feel like I’ve been serving a great pal in Rebecca. I took her very seriously.
DEADLINE: Would you say Rebecca gets a happy ending in the finale?
WADDINGHAM: Yeah, I think she gets what she deserves. Do we know if it’s for life? Who knows? None of us do. But I like the fact that the man that had made her feel sunshine again has walked back in and gone, ‘Hey.’
DEADLINE: It’s special when someone who really deserves it gets their happy ending.
She’s a very good egg, and I treated her with great love. She ended up with somebody who, whilst he absolutely adores her, couldn’t care less whether she’s a big, high-powered businesswoman or not. He just digs who she is.
DEADLINE: It seemed as though everyone teased Rebecca and Ted could end up together. In that opening scene, I really thought they had hooked up, but then here comes Beard in his sexy thong. It just kind of throws everything for a loop.
WADDINGHAM: I mean, isn’t that the greatest thong acting you’ve seen in your life? That’s like committing to the thong.
DEADLINE: The thong was amazing.
WADDINGHAM: We all watched it last night together, and I turned on him and I was like, ‘That is strong thong work, my friend.’
DEADLINE: It almost feels like, in another place at another time, it could have been Rebecca and Ted. How do you feel about that?
WADDINGHAM: I think that can be the case with many people that come into your life. If you have chemistry, you have chemistry. And, you know, who’s to say that people that walk into your life at any given point couldn’t be more than they are? But for whatever reason, your own cosmic sources are spinning you off in a different direction. The most driving thing is that man needed to get back to his boy.
DEADLINE: He did, indeed. So, do you really think this is the end for Ted Lasso?
WADDINGHAM: I mean, I genuinely have no idea—none of us does. I think the only person that may be keeping it under his hat, and rightly so, is Jason. But we all certainly took it as the end of this three seasons’ story and just tried to honor it the best we could.
DEADLINE: I really loved Keeley and Rebecca talking about this AFC Richmond Women’s Team. Could that be a potential spinoff?
WADDINGHAM: Well, it wasn’t really Keeley and Rebecca. It’s Keeley, which I think is really beautiful. She presents as this little girl who walked in on the first day doubting herself and Rebecca says ‘Maybe you should go for a change in career.’ And this young woman comes in with a unicorn notepad and suddenly, this woman has become a little lion. And she comes in and goes, ‘How about this?’ I love the arc of Keeley’s character to present something to Rebecca that she hasn’t thought about.
DEADLINE: Rupert got his comeuppance in the end. Do you feel that finally freed Rebecca from all that binded them?
WADDINGHAM: Well, funnily enough, I thought that I would feel like there was divine retribution. But I don’t know whether [because of] being around Rebecca or being around the Lasso world, I actually found it quite sad and uncomfortable watching that. I just thought it was actually not satisfying. I mean, it’s not as if it was some kind of molesting or embezzling. He’s just a bit of an asshole. A self-serving asshole. I thought it was quite sad that he can’t pull himself out of this world of having to dominate everyone and everything. But I don’t know whether that’s because I desperately love the actor himself, Anthony Head. He’s absolutely brilliant, he is. I would say that he and Phil Dunster are the two people that are the least like their characters in real life. So in terms of them playing a brilliant part, I take my hat off to both of them deeply. But it’s funny how retribution actually left me feeling sorry for the mess that the character is. I’m glad it didn’t make me think, ‘hahahaha.’
DEADLINE: When it comes to Roy Kent, he’s been on this journey of self-improvement and has evolved so much. Why was Roy Rebecca’s only choice when picking a successor for Ted?
WADDINGHAM: She puts it brilliantly when she says, ‘When are you going to get out of your own way?’ I think she finds beauty in that, that this spitting, ebullient character has a softness and really bloody cares about that team. And even though he couldn’t be more different from Ted, she realizes that this will save her team and the team will save him.
DEADLINE: If this really is the end, what did you learn from playing Rebecca that you’ll take with you to your next roles?
WADDINGHAM: It’s okay for everyone to have epic ups and downs. And that when you find the right group of people, they just come with you on the ups and downs. And there’s beauty in both.
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