Ted Lasso Bosses Originally Hoped To Include Anthony Head In Season 4 Finale

Ted Lasso’s co-creator has admitted that the show’s creative time had hoped that the late Anthony Head might have been able to return for its most recent run of episodes.

Season four of the Apple TV+ sports comedy was the first not to feature Anthony, who died June 2026 at the age of 72, as former Richmond FC owner Rupert Mannion.

Speaking to Deadline in an interview published this week, co-creator, co-writer and actor Brendan Hunt admitted there had been “an outside hope of bringing him back in the last episode”.

“[But] we were told that that was not going to be possible,” he recalled. “So yeah, we had an idea for a little thing but it was not going to happen.”

Earlier in Ted Lasso’s fourth season season, in an episode in which his character was repeatedly alluded to off-screen, the show included a touching tribute to the British actor.

Cast member Annette Badland previously shared with the US outlet: “I assumed he would be in this last [season] and didn’t know, as I think very few people knew, he was ill and just couldn’t do it.”

Besides Ted Lasso, Anthony was known for his work in projects like Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and Little Britain.

Over the summer, Anthony’s family announced that he had “peacefully” and “surrounded by” loved ones, as the result of “complications due to pneumonia”. Other details about his health have not been made public. 

His daughters Emily and Daisy remembered their father as an “extraordinary” man in June, saying: “It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many.”

Noting that their dad “always considered himself incredibly lucky” to be in his line of work, and that his “legacy will live on”, they added: “How dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues and fans of the show he was in.”