‘Ted Lasso’: Hannah Waddingham Switching To Lead Actress For Season 4 Awards Consideration

EXCLUSIVE: Rebecca Welton is moving up. With her Ted Lasso character’s presence expanding in Season 4 as the force behind the AFC Richmond fledgeling women’s team, Hannah Waddingham will be campaigned for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series during the upcoming TV awards season.

Waddingham was submitted as Supporting Actress for the first three seasons of Apple TV hit Ted Lasso, earning three Emmy nominations in the Supporting Actress In a Comedy Series category and winning in 2021, two Golden Globe nominations in the Supporting TV Actress field that spans series, miniseries and TV movies, and two Actor nominations in the combined Female Actor In a Comedy Series category that covers lead and supporting performances.

Fellow Ted Lasso original cast member Juno Temple, who had been nominated alongside Waddingham in the Supporting Actress In a Comedy Series Emmy category for playing Rebecca’s BFF Keeley Jones in each of the first three seasons, will continue to campaign as supporting.

AFC Richmond owner Rebecca was front and center in Season 4 of Ted Lasso, which started with her touching down in Kansas to recruit Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) as manager of Richmond’s second division women’s football team and ended with her winning a high-stakes fight for the control of the club and proposing to her longtime boyfriend.

Waddingham’s move to the Lead Actress ranks, joining star Sudeikis on the distaff side, fits with Ted Lasso‘s Season 4 focus on women who break barriers and redefine leadership. The show’s Season 5 renewal is still pending.

If she scores another Emmy nomination, Waddingham will join an elite group of actors who have been nominated as both Supporting and Lead for the same show, including Allison Janney for both The West Wing and Mom (she won both Lead and Supporting for The West Wing and Supporting for Mom) and Jon Cryer for Two and a Half Men, who also won in both categories.

Over its first three seasons, Ted Lasso has won 20 Emmy Awards, including back-to-back Outstanding Comedy Series and Lead Actor In a Comedy Series (Sudeikis) trophies for Seasons 1 and 2.

Following a break after Ted Lasso wrapped its original three-season arc, the popular series returned for Season 4 on Aug. 5. On the new season’s release date, Ted Lasso Season 4 was the most-streamed program in the U.S. with more than 200 million viewing minutes, according to Nielsen.

In addition to Waddingham, Sudeikis and Temple, the new season reunites fellow Ted Lasso OGs Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift, alongside new additions Tanya Reynolds, Jude Mack, Faye Marsay, Rex Hayes, Aisling Sharkey, Abbie Hern and Grant Feely.

The series, from Warner Bros. Television, is executive produced by Sudeikis, Hunt, Joe Kelly, Jane Becker, Jamie Lee, Bill Wrubel, Jack Burditt, Goldstein, Leann Bowen and Doozer’s Bill Lawrence, Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer. Ted Lasso was developed by Sudeikis, Lawrence, Kelly and Hunt based on the preexisting format and characters from NBC Sports.

Waddingham’s recent film and television credits also include the Prime Video series Ride or Die and the movies The Woman in Cabin 10, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Lilo & Stitch and Smurfs. The film, TV and stage actress will be honored at the 2026 Women In Film Honors with the Crystal Award for Advocacy in TV on Nov. 5 at The Beverly Hilton.