Aisling Sharkey says she was not expecting to be photographed today, though there is little sign of it. The 25-year-old actress from Lusk, with her red hair, clear complexion and understated confidence, settles in front of the camera with remarkable ease.
That composure may soon prove useful, because Sharkey is about to become much more familiar with life in the spotlight.
The young Irish performer has secured a career-altering part in one of television’s most recognisable shows. She appears in season four of Ted Lasso as Niamh Harrigan, a tough, spirited Irish footballer and member of AFC Richmond’s Lady Greyhounds squad.
Aisling Sharkey at the premiere of series 4 of Ted Lasso. Picture: Getty Images
Although Sharkey understood, in theory, that she was stepping into a hugely successful series, she says the true scale of Ted Lasso’s reach did not immediately sink in.
‘It’s bizarre,’ she says with a laugh. ‘When you’re filming, especially the kind of stuff we were doing, you’re on the pitch for 12 hours a day, five days a week. You forget that the cameras are rolling and people are actually going to see it.
‘If I’m honest, being perceived on a mass level is quite terrifying,’ she adds, sounding only partly amused by the thought.
Created by Saturday Night Live alumnus Jason Sudeikis, who also plays the endlessly upbeat American coach thrown into the world of English football, Ted Lasso has become a global streaming phenomenon. The Apple TV hit has won consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and built a deeply loyal international audience.
Sharkey trained in musical theatre in Dublin before moving on to Lane Theatre Arts in Epsom, where she was cast in the show. Looking back, she admits she may not have fully appreciated just how passionate the Ted Lasso fanbase had become.
‘I mean, I didn’t have an Apple TV subscription!’ she says, referring to the show’s status as one of the streamer’s flagship titles. ‘I don’t think I realised just how important the show was to people.
‘People really love it in a way that it’s important to them and now I get that too – the virtue ethics and empathy. Plus it’s totally changed my head when it comes to football,’ she says. Before landing the role, she admits her main connection to the game came through a former boyfriend.
‘My ex was a ref, so I’m well versed in being at the side of a pitch with a runny nose watching some pretty average under-18 football,’ she laughs.
‘What I learnt about women’s football is that it’s for the love of the game without the politics and aggression that men’s football can have.
‘You support your team and at the end of the day, no one’s beating each other up in the stadium,’ Aisling says of how the show turns that ‘win at all costs’ sports mentality on its head.
Aisling, centre, with Annelise Heywood, Elizabeth Falola, Gabrielle Dieujuste and Faye Marsay in Ted Lasso
Mind you, learning how to play itself was something of a baptism of fire, she admits.
‘We had a three-week boot camp before we started shooting,’ she reveals. ‘I thought it might be a little cushty, kick a ball about for show and get to know each other. No, it was like boot camp with drill sergeants.
‘It was great craic, but they didn’t take it easy on us.’
She had some well-defined inspiration for her feisty on-screen character.
‘Niamh is partially modelled on Roy Keane and Katie McCabe – she’s formidable and that’s what really appealed to me about her,’ she says of the tough nut defender, who regularly locks horns with her on-screen twin Siobhan, played by Rex Hayes, who is now almost ‘familial’ to her.
‘We got on so well thank god as we are in every shot together,’ Aisling says of the seven-month shoot.
‘It’s like we had sibling energy from early on, and actually the entire cast just had this family, comfortable vibe.
‘A lot of the characters are messy women – messy, annoying, aggressive – and I like having that on telly and not apologising for it, as opposed to having to be these really polite, grateful-to-be-here ones,’ observes Aisling.
Speaking of the female cast, Hannah Waddingham – whose career exploded when she joined the show as AFC Richmond’s owner Rebecca Welton – is just as much the superstar in real life as she is on screen.
‘She’s a force!’ Aisling exclaims, describing Hannah’s 5ft11 presence as intoxicating. ‘She’s so tall in every way.
‘I saw an interview where she was talking about deciding she was never going to make herself small for anyone, that she was going to take up all of the space she was given at birth and then some.
‘You can tell by the way she carries herself. She’s this beautiful, elegant swan. She’s taught me a lot. So often as women we can make ourselves smaller to suit a room or the comfort of other people. She’s one of the gals.
Aisling with Jason Sudeikis and Rex Hayes, who plays her on-screen twin, at the series four premiere of Ted Lasso. Picture: Getty Images
‘She’s an oversharer too and I love that,’ Aisling laughs, adding that Jason Sudeikis is equally as sound – a ‘legend’.
‘He’s really good at what he does,’ she says. ‘He’s human, if you know what I mean. He’s lovely and patient.’
While Aisling is happy to discuss working with the biggest names in Hollywood, she’s back on home turf this week for something considerably closer to where her own story began – as a patron of the new Irish National Academy of the Arts, founded by her former teacher Rory Hughes, which is welcoming its first full-time intake this month.
Aisling’s journey to get to star in one of the biggest TV shows in the world was not an easy one. She left conventional school after her Junior Cert to attend a full-time performing arts college in Dublin, having already been dancing and performing in musical theatre.
At just 14, she landed a role in the BBC children’s vampire fantasy series Heirs Of The Night, an experience that saw her travelling around Europe with a group of other young actors, filming in Latvia, Croatia and Norway.
‘I had a chaperone, no parents,’ she recalls of a fairly unusual adolescence. ‘Like I had my first drink, my first boyfriend, while filming that show.
‘Of course I loved it, but looking back, I would have loved not to have had to outsource my training. I would love to live in Ireland and work here. I still would.
‘The thing is, Ireland has never had a talent problem – as a country, we are a country of incredible artists.
‘I was a little girl with a talent, but what I needed was refinement to get me into a school.’
Aisling with Rory Hughes, her former teacher who has founded the Irish National Academy of Arts. Picture: Fran Veale
The missing ingredient, she believes, is access. Ultimately, this is what the Irish National Academy of Arts is aiming to change – to give young Irish performers access to the kind of intensive professional training for which Aisling and many others have traditionally had to leave Ireland.
‘In Britain, for example, you have theatre primary schools, you get the training and then you get on to a West End musical. The access there is way easier. We Irish are doing it just as well with half the opportunities.’
There is an irony that even now, with a major international television credit behind her, much of her Irish work still comes through London.
‘For Ted, as an Irish character, I was cast in London,’ she says. ‘Recently I did a movie up in Belfast about an Irish story, but again I was cast from London.’
The life of an actor is clearly not for the faint-hearted – not that she ever had much of a choice in the matter.
‘It wasn’t like I made a calculated decision at 14 to become an actor,’ she muses. ‘I think every actor or person in the arts will tell you, you do this as it’s part of you. Like at one point in school I was hoping to be a doctor, and then I started performing, and I knew I was going to do this either way.
‘But it’s cool now that I’m making money from it,’ she says – although rejection is par for the course in her line of work.
Aisling says it’s hard not to take rejection personally as an actor. Picture: Fran Veale
‘Oh, it’s en masse as an actor, you’re just hearing “no” every day, and it’s hard not to take it personally sometimes, but age and experience have given me a different way of looking at it. Once you’re past the first round of auditions, anyone can do the job. Then it’s just about details – height, hair colour, ethnicity. It’s a lot of things out of your control.’
One thing that’s definitely in her control, however, is how she deals with trolling.
‘I tend not to look at comments,’ she says of social media. ‘My mindset is, if you’re watching a TV show, you don’t like a character and you DM the actor that they’re ugly and terrible, that says a lot more about you. Like I’ve never DMed someone or left hate comments on someone’s Instagram.
‘You have to look at the person it’s coming from and think, do I trust your opinion of my performance? I don’t think I do. And look, everyone’s entitled to artistic opinion. If you don’t like it, that is fine. I’m like, you know what? I did my job and I got paid.’
Indeed, Aisling is open about how her Ted Lasso earnings have been life-changing – and not just for her. ‘The money from this show has done so much for my family,’ she says.
‘We don’t come from money, I don’t come from performers. It’s so much bigger than me. It wasn’t just a win for me.’
It wasn’t smooth sailing, however, as she waited months for a callback from the audition, having initially accepted a part touring with Mamma Mia and serendipitously turning it down as she had a gut feeling she wouldn’t be doing stage work for some time.
On the Sunday night of her final college show, she stood backstage preparing for a big musical number and found herself strangely determined to take in every second of it.
‘I was looking at the lights backstage and I thought, I’m going to really enjoy this, I need to savour this because I don’t think it’s going to happen again any time soon,’ she says. ‘I had no reason to think that, I hadn’t heard from Ted in months.’
Aisling at the Variety 2026 Power of Women in London in June 2026. Picture: Getty Images
The following morning, the phone rang – and she had the part. ‘Genuinely, it’s actually indescribable, when you get a phone call like that,’ she says. ‘It changes the course of your life.’
She has been busy since, working on a new film and starting to create work herself, writing and producing.
‘I think next for me is to get producing my own stuff,’ she says. ‘So often, as women, we wait for opportunities, whereas I see so many men less qualified than me doing what I should be doing.
‘I think, “why am I not doing that? Like, that is the worst short film I’ve ever seen. But at least it’s a short film that you made. Why am I not doing that?”’ she laughs.
Her tendency for perfectionism, she admits, has sometimes got in the way. ‘I’m trying to get away from that and just start creating,’ she says. ‘I’m noticing in my work and the jobs I’m getting as well, it’s all women’s stories so I hope the tide is turning.’
What about another season of Ted Lasso? Needless to say, Aisling is keen to pull on the Lady Greyhounds jersey again for season five. ‘I’d love that, but we’ll have to wait and see.’
The INAA will open its first full-time intake this September, offering structured performing arts training for students aged 15-18, with additional diploma and degree-level pathways in development, see irishnationalacademy.com. Ted Lasso series four is now on Apple TV
