Hannah Waddingham Recalls Her Emotional Final Day of Filming 'Ted Lasso' Season 3

Hannah Waddingham wanted nothing to do with Ted Lasso creator and her costar Jason Sudeikis on her last day of filming season 3 of the hit Apple+ show.

"As we wrapped, Jason turned up and gave me a squeeze," the British star, 48, recalls in this week's issue of PEOPLE, where she opens up about life before and after Lasso.

Rather than hug him back, "I was like, 'Don't. Don't! Because I will literally start crying. Go away. Give me a squeeze and then I'll say "See you later" and we'll go for dinner somewhere.'"

Though it hasn't been announced whether or not season 3 will be the show's last, on that day, Waddingham had all the feels as if it were the end. It made her take stock in the moment.

"I was so pleased that my last scene for season 3 was by myself in my 'Rebecca House,'" she says of filming in London as her character, the show's endearing, embattled soccer team owner Rebecca Welton. "It's an actual house in the corner of Richmond Green and it was really lovely."

If it is indeed the end for Lasso, Waddingham has plenty to occupy her time.

Since scooping up the 2021 Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress, she's landed roles in major upcoming projects like PBS's limited series Tom Jones, The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and in the next installment of Mission: Impossible opposite Tom Cruise.

The single mom often tells her 8-year-old daughter, "I have to strike while the iron is hot!"

It's currently white-hot from where Waddingham is sitting, and after decades in musical theater and as a "jobbing actress" in the U.K., she couldn't feel more grateful — or grounded.

"I think when [success] comes to you late in life, you take it more with a pinch of salt," she says. "I'd never shy away from that fact, that I'm 48, I just try to be the best version of myself, make people smile and hope they make me smile."

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Ted Lasso drops new season 3 episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+.