Ted Lasso’s Sarah Niles Brought Game-Day Poise and Gilded Glamour to the 2022 Emmys

What does Sarah Niles know about performance anxiety? The British actor, who plays the unflappable sports psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone in the second season of Ted Lasso, did her homework for the role. She listened to LeBron James talk about mental preparedness; the immersive miniseries The Last Dance, about the rise of the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan, was fresh in mind when she joined the cast. “I read a few books on sports psychology, but obviously I wouldn’t assume I could learn what takes years to know,” explains Niles, who garnered a “surprise” supporting actress nomination for the part—one of 20 nods for Ted Lasso, which once again took home the top prize for a comedy series at the 2022 Emmys on Monday night. When asked if she relates to such pre-game nerves, her reply is emphatic: “Absolutely 100%!” It’s an email interview, but Niles’s warmth is palpable—quite unlike the inscrutable therapist who arrives at AFC Richmond’s HQ. “I’m still learning to accept being vulnerable and doubting myself. I have also learnt that vulnerability is my superpower,” she says of the “real human touch” that manifests onscreen. It’s a worthwhile exercise, endeavoring to figure out which internal narratives have outstayed their welcome. “I talk to myself about slaying dragons—my challenges,” she says. “Not all dragons need to be slayed.”

The metaphor made all the more sense when Niles turned up on the Emmys red carpet, looking like a benevolent queen from a kingdom blessed with deep gold reserves. “I thought about existence and royalty,” she explains of her initial inspirations—ancient Egypt, Cleopatra—which played out in an opulent dress by Gaurav Gupta and Boucheron earrings that radiated like sunbeams. “I have never been on the red carpet at the Emmys before, and I know here in the US you know and do glamour so, so well. I wanted to step out that way.” A wash of metallic shadow illuminated her eyelids, with glowing skin finessed by makeup artist Jessica Smalls; nail artist Temeka Jackson continued the theme with honey-gold tips. In lieu of a monarch’s crown, the look was finished with a show-stopping swirl of box braids, accented with delicate gold wire. As hairstylist Dionne Smith explains, pharaonic rule was just the start of the discussion. “Then we were thinking, ‘How can we incorporate some culture into it?’”

Niles’s press appearances leading up to the Emmys offered an opportunity for creative play. “These last four or five days, it’s all been about textured hair,” Smith says, from a voluminous Afro to sleek, center-parted curls. The two women have been working together for the past year. “She’s more than a client—we hang out, we go for breakfast, we chat,” the hairstylist says. That kind of camaraderie feels especially fitting for a Ted Lasso star heading out for a career-high evening. As hair and makeup got underway in the hotel room, a soundtrack of Studio One songs (what some have termed the Motown of Jamaica) set the mood. “We grew up to that kind of music. I think, for Sarah, it was her way of calming herself down,” says Smith. The hairstylist recalls seeing a Ted Lasso promo item on the bed, with ”BELIEVE” in big letters—an homage to the sign that the goofily optimistic coach (Emmy winner Jason Sudeikis) tapes above the locker-room door. For Lasso, winning every game isn’t the point; ditto the statue for Niles this time around. Instead, the actor shares the folk wisdom from the series that has stuck with her: “The truth will set you free. To be unashamedly yourself, stand in your truth.” 

Niles dispenses clear-headed advice as readily as her therapist counterpart. The public-facing careers so many of us have (the actor’s back catalog includes roles in I May Destroy You and Catastrophe, along with a raft of theater credits) have a way of needling at a person’s insecurities. “The anxiety can often chokehold you and take all the beauty and joy out of what we do. If we name it and accept it, I feel it gets a little easier,” she says. “That’s not to say it’s an easy task. But so far it’s working for me.” Staying busy with work and rooted in family life acted as twin ballasts in the lead-up to this awards show—a bundle of emotions that had her “thrilled and nervous and excited and ever so grateful.” 

Next, for the upcoming series Riches (a joint effort from Amazon Studio and ITV), Niles changes gears, playing a “lovable villain” who is married to a cosmetics magnate. “It is the first story of a rich Black family in the UK, and we’ve had some challenges with it,” she says. It’s hard to imagine Niles on the morally flawed end of the spectrum; she found her way by leaning into the humanity of this character—“what’s at stake and what is she fighting to hold on to.” That fictional beauty world, in all its messiness, abuts her own experience on the step-and-repeat. “Riches really taught me a lot about advocating how you are seen on the red carpet,” Niles says, reflecting on the evening’s team effort. “The glam to me is both an enjoyable and political act of taking ownership of Black beauty. The beauty of women. To be seen.”