Juno Temple has called her involvement in Ted Lasso season 4 ‘an absolute honour’, as the show pivots its entire focus to women’s football and the barriers female athletes face. The new season, which premiered on Radio Times confirms began on 5 August 2026, runs to 10 episodes released weekly every Wednesday, with the finale scheduled for 7 October 2026.
The setup is a significant departure. After leaving for Kansas City at the end of season three, Ted returns to England to coach the Lady Greyhounds, a new women’s team, while familiar faces like Temple’s Keeley Jones navigate fresh storylines built around the realities of women in sport.
Juno Temple Ted Lasso Season 4: What Keeley Means to Her
Temple has played Keeley since the beginning, watching her evolve from a player’s girlfriend into an accomplished head of marketing. Four seasons in, the affection is undiminished. ‘Keeley is just a character that seems to make people smile,’ Temple told ELLE. ‘She’s a diamond in an ocean.’
Part of what keeps the performance fresh, Temple says, is the work she does away from the camera. She met with Jason Sudeikis before this season to discuss where Keeley had been during the three-year gap in the story, approaching it the way they first spoke about the role. ‘I’m good at questioning details because I think that there’s a lot of deliciousness in the details that makes a character become whole,’ she said. The behind-closed-doors insecurities she builds for Keeley, though? Those she’s keeping to herself. ‘They’re just things that I find to be a delight to remember at different moments.’
The costume element is, as ever, central to how Temple inhabits her. The first thing she did for this season was sit down with costume designer Jacky Levy, spending five hours going through looks. ‘All of us were literally beaming at all these incredibly tiny, sparkly, joyous, colorful little outfits together,’ she said. ‘The way Keeley walks into a space and immediately fills it with some color in a way that you didn’t expect it is why I love being her.’
Women’s Sport, and Why the Timing Matters
The decision to recentre the show around a women’s team landed differently for Temple than a standard storyline shift. ‘What an absolute honor it was to be telling this story and be doing it in a time where it feels like people are ready to start really talking about the insane difficulties that women face in the sports world,’ she said.
She referenced a quote from Emma Hayes about the contrast between men’s and women’s football: ‘Men’s football is kind of like a cortisol hit, but women’s football is kind of like a dopamine hit.’ Temple called it ‘a really interesting way of getting it.’
The show itself is testing those ideas in the storylines. According to Forbes, as season 4 approaches its midpoint, Ted and Coach Alice are butting heads, with Ted still adjusting to coaching women’s football in an environment where the Lady Greyhounds lack the community support the men’s team enjoys on Nelson Road. It is exactly the kind of structural inequality the show is setting out to dramatise.
Keeley’s arc this season also draws on the mentorship she found in Rebecca, played by Hannah Waddingham. ‘In Rebecca, she’s gained an extraordinary friend who really sees potential in her,’ Temple said. ‘I think she’s learned that she’s really good at her job. She’s also learning about being held accountable for things when she gets them wrong.’ Growth, then, but not the tidy kind.
On what the show itself represents, Temple was characteristically direct. ‘There’s a lot of hate, there’s a lot of violence, there’s a lot of not being curious about different types of people and cultures and places,’ she said. ‘The show gives a glimmer of hope that actually people don’t really want to hate each other.’
Ted Lasso season 4 is streaming now on Apple TV+, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday through to 7 October 2026.
