Brendan Hunt Names the New “Ted Lasso” Character He Can’t Wait for Viewers to Meet: ‘F---ing Incredible’ (Exclusive)

Sabienna BowmanWed, August 5, 2026 at 1:44 PM UTC

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Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt on ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Apple TV -

Ted Lasso season 4 introduces a women’s team, the Lady Greyhounds, and marks a new coaching challenge for Ted and Coach Beard

Among the newcomers, Tanya Reynolds joins the cast as assistant coach Alice Chilton

Brendan Hunt tells PEOPLE the show’s return was uncertain but credits star Jason Sudeikis for deciding the timing was right

Ted Lasso is adding a few new faces to season 4.

After a three-year hiatus, the Emmy-winning Apple TV comedy is returning with a new challenge for Ted (Jason Sudeikis): coaching a lower-division women’s team. In the season premiere, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley (Juno Temple) and Higgins (Jeremy Swift) visit Kansas City to persuade Ted to return to London and coach Richmond’s newly formed Lady Greyhounds. When Ted arrives, he’s introduced to a whole new team, as well as an assistant coach who isn’t instantly sold on his methods.

Speaking with PEOPLE, Brendan Hunt, who plays the astute Coach Beard and serves as a writer and executive producer on the series, revealed which character he’s most excited for fans to see. Hunt, 54, also conceded that at one point, he was unsure if Ted Lasso would ever return at all.

From left: Jeremy Swift, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple and Jason Sudeikis in ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Apple TV

“We definitely needed a break and then it needed to stew in him [Sudeikis] for a while if we were for sure going to do it, which, I was very 50/50 on whether or not it was ever going to come back because Jason was going to be the decider and the show takes more out of Jason than it takes out of any of us,” he says. “So it was rightfully in his bailiwick to decide.”

Hunt continues, “After about, oh gosh, a year of finally having been done with not just shooting, but with post and everything, then he started to come back with the odd text of, ‘I’m thinking yeah, I’m thinking yeah.’ ”

“The time was right because Jason’s soul thus decreed, I’d say,” the actor adds of why now was the right time for season 4.

As Ted and Beard move from coaching the men’s team to the women’s, Hunt maintains their goal will remain the same: to help the players reach their full potential. “I think one thing that we tried to do was for Ted and Beard as much as possible, though it is now a women’s team and in a lower division, is demonstrate... they’re still coaches and they still have their way of coaching and they’re going to be coaching no matter where and who is going to be the environment and recipients of that coaching,” he says.

Hunt explains that “their mission with the team is the same as it is always, just try to help them be the best version of themselves.”

Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Tanya Reynolds on ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Colin Hutton/Apple TV

In addition to the returning original cast members, the new season introduces Tanya Reynolds, best known for her role on Sex Education, as new assistant coach Alice Chilton. It also welcomes a number of new players including Gemma (Abbie Hern), Lizzie (Faye Marsay), Boots (Jude Mack), Niamh (Aisling Sharkey) and Siobhan (Rex Hayes). While Hunt is excited for fans to meet all of the Lady Greyhounds, he’s especially excited for viewers to be introduced to Alice, who rounds out Ted and Beard’s coaching trio.

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“The difference that is the most fun, I think, is now their third musketeer is the character, Alice Chilton, played by Tanya Reynolds, who has her own version of reticence and hesitation to join along with what Ted has to offer because of what her personal history is, which we unwind as the series goes on,” Hunt says of the biggest shift in season 4.

The Elio actor praises Reynolds, 34, as being “so good at what she does and so nimble.”

Tanya Reynolds on ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Colin Hutton/Apple TV

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He adds, “I can’t give away too much of what she had to teach Ted and Beard, which she does in her way, but that is her journey that we’re going to go on during the course of the season. I love all of our new cast, but the person I worked with the most was Tanya and Tanya’s f---ing incredible.”

Since Alice will be spending the majority of her screen time with Ted and Beard, Hunt says it was important to find an actress who could both fit in with the existing coaches and challenge them at the same time.

“I think that’s why we were very judicious about casting that character,” Hunt says. “We had to make sure that was right because that’s a character who had to be fitting into a previously constructed dynamic. The new characters get to be new characters, there’s a new team, but she’s going to be in our office with us. And so we just had to take good care with that. I mean, yeah, it just boils down to Tanya being so good that it was never that difficult.”

Tanya Reynolds and Jason Sudeikis in ‘Ted Lasso’Credit: Apple TV

Hunt teases that viewers will get their first scene of all three coaches sitting around their desks chatting in episode 3, and he’s quite pleased with how the moment turned out. “I think it’s episode 3, is the first time we have a sort of traditional Ted Lasso, the three coaches in their office, talking through the day type of scene,” he says. “And just watching it, it was fun to shoot. It was fun to write.”

“But then watching it fully finished and edited was like, ‘Oh, okay. We’re all right, we’re all right.’ She fits right in,” he adds. “And I’m perhaps not the most objective person, but the fun that we’re having there seems to come off the screen pretty well.”

Ted Lasso season 4 premieres Wednesday, Aug. 5 on Apple TV. New episodes will air weekly through Oct. 7.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”