Keeley Hazell Claims Role of Ted Lasso’s Keeley Was Written for Her — But It Went to Juno Temple

Ted Lasso star Keeley Hazell claims she almost starred as Keeley Jones before the role went to Juno Temple.

Hazell, 38, recalled meeting up with Jason Sudeikis “to discuss the part he had written for me,” in her new memoir, Everyone’s Seen My Tits: Stories and Reflections From an Unlikely Feminist, released on Tuesday, August 26.

“He told me about the TV show. It was a football show set in England. It would film in London,” she wrote, seemingly referring to Ted Lasso. “J 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.”

Sudeikis, 49, apparently told her more about the role of Keeley.

“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,” the actress wrote. “I auditioned. I auditioned again. According to J, I was at the top of the list, but casting wanted to see another scene. In the third and final round, J read with me.”

Eventually, Sudeikis broke the news (via text) that she was going to be “offered another part” in the show.

“I felt like I’d been punched in the chest,” Hazell wrote. The part of Keeley went to Temple, who played the role for the entirety of the Apple TV+ series, which premiered in 2020.

“Once I didn’t get cast as Keeley, I decided that acting could go f*** itself,” she wrote, revealing that she had a small stint as a producer on Love Island before taking the role as Bex in Ted Lasso.

Hazell wrote that she put on an “Oscar worthy” performance pretending to be “totally fine” with what went down regarding her casting.

“It was better than my acting in the show, which was bad. Just awful,” she recalled. “Instead of using this as an opportunity to prove how good I was, I sabotaged myself on-screen with defiant disengagement.”

While the show took off, things were awkward for Hazell as she was associated with the show for having the same name as one of the main characters versus her actual work on the series.

“As for me? The only change I noticed was when I went to order some food and gave my name for the order and the server said, ‘Oh, Keeley, like the character from Ted Lasso!’ He mistook my look of horror for confusion and then asked if I’d seen the show,” she recalled. “That’s the other thing. While I was just someone who was ‘sort of famous for being almost famous,’ as Ted Lasso’s Keeley Jones liked to point out.”

The character “defied the stereotype—proving that women can be multifaceted,” while Hazell is someone “who has stumbled and struggled and survived.”

She wrote, “I get to play the greatest role of my lifetime — the Real Keeley, and here she f***ing is.”