'Surreal' moment as Welsh actor joins Ted Lasso cast
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- Rex Hayes joins Ted Lasso Season 4 as Siobhan, twin sister to Niamh (Aisling Sharkey), playing on AFC Richmond's new second-division women's team The Lady Greyhounds.
- Season 4 shifts focus to Ted returning from Kansas to coach The Lady Greyhounds, with returning cast regulars Hannah Waddington, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Sudeikis alongside new additions Faye Marsay (Game of Thrones), Abbie Hern, Jude Mack, and Tanya Reynolds.
- Rex Hayes credits attending a Welsh-language school and years performing at the Eisteddfod as foundational to their career, and will return to this year's Eisteddfod in Llandudoch, north Pembrokeshire, to watch their mother sing.
- Rex Hayes recorded an audition tape of football skills honed kicking a ball around Heath Park in Cardiff with their father — having given up the sport at 12 for drama school, then resuming play after moving to London.
- Ted Lasso Season 4 drops on Apple TV+ on 5 August, with Rex's character Siobhan speaking with an Irish — not Welsh — accent.
Why it matters: Ted Lasso's pivot to a women's team for Season 4 gives Apple TV+ a fresh underdog arc for its flagship comedy, while Rex Hayes's Eisteddfod-to-Hollywood trajectory — Welsh-language schooling, London return, football-driven audition — gives Apple a Cardiff-rooted breakout rather than the typical US-trained pipeline.
