Spoilers for Season 3 of Ted Lasso are ahead! If you haven’t streamed the series, you can watch it now with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Rebecca Welton is a serious boss, and she runs AFC Richmond with class, style and confidence. While all this is on display frequently in Ted Lasso, she really showed it off in Season 3, Episode 10 – “International Break” – when she stood up to all the other football club owners. Now, Hannah Waddinham has opened up about what that empowering scene meant to her, and revealed how she would have handled the situation in real life, and it’s very Roy Kent of her.
For some context, in “International Break” Rebecca was invited to an exclusive meeting about the creation of a new exclusive football league. This project was spearheaded by the greedy Edwin Akufo, and notably, every other club owner at the meeting is a man, except for Waddingham’s character. In the end, she imagined them as little boys, then denounced the idea, called out all the guys for trying to exploit the sport, and got most of them to agree with her. It’s a scene that showed her power and highlighted just how far she’s come over three seasons. For Waddingham, it was also a meaningful moment personally and professionally, as she told the LA Times:
It felt amazing. In the beginning of my career — and in parts of my youth — I was always very wary of that generation of men. There’s something about that generation sometimes, certainly of British school headmaster-type men, where they have run the show for so long that you do not question them. The catharsis I felt from being able to talk to them as little boys was just really, really thrilling.
Seeing Rebecca claim her power, and stand up to all the male soccer executives, even though she felt nervous and intimidated, was so powerful, for both viewers like me, and Waddingham. Not only did it allow her to reclaim her power and pride from her ex-husband Rupert, but it also showed her overall impact and confidence as a club owner.
While Ms. Welton handled the situation with a lot of grace, Waddingham revealed she probably wouldn’t have. The Emmy-winning actress went on to talk about how she would have acted if she were in that meeting with all those men. She confessed that she probably would have taken a more Roy Kent approach to the situation, saying:
I would be more lairy, more gobby [aggressive and loud], more in your face with them. Rebecca has an innate, inherent elegance and class and never really shouts apart from the times when people like Roy can push her. She only ever shouts at football. That’s very unlike me. I would be around that table going, ‘Who the f— do you think you are?’
This feels like a very Brett Goldstein answer to me. The f-bomb, the bluntness, it’s powerful, and very on-brand for Roy Kent, which I love for Hannah Waddingham. Honestly, I feel like if those guys would have gotten either version of the actress’s big moment, it would have been impactful.
Now, that the Season 3 finale of Ted Lasso has come and gone, the big question is if it’ll ever come back. After Rebecca stood up to all those guys in the meeting, she went on to help AFC Richmond get promoted, and she’s truly thriving. Waddingham has said she’d “entertain the idea” of playing the football club owner again, however, it’d have to be under the right circumstances.
Luckily, whether she comes back as Rebecca Welton or not, we’ll always have this character and this fantastic scene of her standing up to all the other club owners, and really stepping into and owning her power. Along with that, Hannah Waddingham's fantastic answer added so much meaning and heart to her powerful moment, with a dash of Roy Kent energy added on at the end, which is truly empowering.
