With her love of fashion, experience with fame, and, yes, collection of hair extensions, Keeley does share some DNA with Temple herself—and it doesn’t take long after Keeley is introduced to realize she, like Temple, is somebody special.
In that one scene Keeley reveals that she is famous, wealthy, and popular—but also kind, the first person who seems immediately in tune with the ethos that Ted will eventually spread to the entire soccer club.
“She’s dating the young, hot football player, but it’s not necessarily giving her everything she needs.” In her early meeting with Sudeikis, he laid out Keeley’s entire emotional arc—her breakup with Jamie, the beginning of her relationship with Roy Kent —but there was one story that had them both sold on just how far this character could go: the relationship between Keeley and Hannah Waddingham’s club owner, Rebecca.
Spending time with Rebecca transforms not only Keeley’s personal life—she takes on a role doing publicity for the club, which leads to her spending more time with Roy—but also her ambitions.
But the series has fun with her modeling career too, finding Keeley on set as a vodka company’s idea of a sexy lion—“I was just throwing so much hair on her head,” Austin remembers—and in a mid-2000s-era promotional video playing on loop at a Liverpool hotel.
With her plum-colored gown, Levy says, “we still wanted her to look lovely, really lovely, but not in a sort of flashy, showy way.
The stunner moment in the gala episode comes just before Keeley breaks things off with Jamie, offering Roy a heartfelt apology in a situation in which 90% of us would probably get blustery and defensive.
“I just hope that girls look at her and copy her,” Austin says, adding that it’s not just about Keeley’s admittedly enviable looks.
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