Keeley Hazell recently revealed that Jason Sudeikis based the Ted Lasso character Keeley on her. In her new memoir, the British model claimed that she nearly landed the role after multiple auditions, but things did not go as planned. Ultimately, she did appear in Ted Lasso, but her role was far less significant than Juno Temple’s character.
Keeley Hazell could have been cast in Ted Lasso instead of Juno Temple
US Weekly revealed how Keeley Hazell discussed her near-casting in Ted Lasso as Keeley in her new memoir, Everyone’s Seen My Tits. The 38-year-old actress and model revealed how Jason Sudeikis had met her to discuss a part he had reportedly written for her. She said that the show hadn’t been picked back then.
“[Sudeikis] was going to play the lead, Ted, a cheery and optimistic American football coach who’d come to coach a British football (soccer) team, which, if you haven’t figured out, is an entirely different sport,” she recalled about the series, “The show hadn’t been picked up at this point, meaning, it was just a script waiting to be sold….But the idea of me being a lead in a TV show was enough to make me wet my pants with excitement.”
Sudeikis was romantically linked to Hazell before. He reportedly talked to her about the character as he wrote it.
Following this, Hazell auditioned multiple times but ultimately did not get the part. Instead, the role went to Juno Temple. Sudeikis told her that she would get another part.
“I felt like I’d been punched in the chest,” Hazell said in the book, “Once I didn’t get cast as Keeley, I decided that acting could go f— itself.”
She ultimately did appear in Ted Lasso, just not as the lead or one of the important characters. Hazell played Bex on the Apple TV+ show. Despite the short recurring role, Bex made quite an impression on the show.
She wrote in her memoir that there were some differences between her and the show Keeley. She added, “I get to play the greatest role of my lifetime — the Real Keeley, and here she f—— is.”
Ted Lasso is streaming on Apple TV+.
