Hannah Waddingham clears her throat. Her voice is a little scratchy. Two days before we meet, the star of Ted Lasso hosted the TV comedy show Saturday Night Live UK. She took part in almost all of the sketches that night, from a skit about \u201ctwo top-heavy, Reading-based drama teachers\u201d called Janet, to a musical number about how many glasses of wine to drink at a bar, to a bit in which she played the stern northern leader of a speed awareness course. In her opening monologue, she zipped through a variety of accents and impressions. \u201cYou see?\u201d she told the cheering crowd. \u201cRange! Range.\u201d<\/p>\n
I should have remembered this line when making small talk. We are tucked away in the hidden private dining room of a hotel in London, the city where the actor was born and raised and where she still lives with her young daughter, Kitty. When Waddingham walks through the lobby, people notice her. She is tall, striking, and wearing the pulled-down baseball cap that is an actor\u2019s day-off uniform. During lockdown, Ted Lasso \u2013 the amiable football series in which she plays Rebecca Welton, the owner of a fictional team called AFC\u00a0Richmond \u2013 made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2021, it won her an Emmy award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. At\u00a047, after a long but unflashy career on stage and screen, there was a sense that her time had come.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny, I tell her cheerfully, as we exchange pleasantries and settle in, but for years I thought you were northern. \u201cNo, really?\u201d she replies, gamely. \u201cWell, my mum was from the Isle of Man, so there\u2019s probably that.\u201d I plough on, expanding my theory. You know, I \u00a0continue brightly, you\u2019ve got northern energy, in a barmaid-at-the-Rovers-Return sort of way. \u201cOh my God,\u201d she says, laughing, though the air has taken on a sudden chill. \u201cIs that a compliment? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d It\u2019s a massive compliment, I say, though I suddenly realise that to her it does not sound that way. Clearly, I \u00a0have got Waddingham all wrong. \u201cI think that comes from theatre \u2026 I\u2019m just taking a moment. I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s ever said that.\u201d I dig myself in deeper. I mean you have a kind of brassy campness. It\u2019s a good thing! \u201cOK,\u201d she replies. \u201cIt\u2019s \u00a0switch-on-able, and switch-off-able, I assure you. It\u2019s just wanting to make people smile and laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now 51, Waddingham is in her Hollywood era. Over the last few years, she has starred in massive feature films like Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning, alongside Tom Cruise, and The Fall Guy, with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. She is here today, enduring me and this conversation, to talk about the return of Ted Lasso, and about her new series, Ride or Die, a comedy-drama caper in which she co-stars with Octavia Spencer. In it, Waddingham is an undercover assassin who loves drinking and men. In the first episode, she athletically jumps out of a first-floor window in order to avoid giving her number to the barman she picked up that night.<\/p>\n
It is lunchtime. We look at the menu. She is a real foodie, she says. \u201cOh, doesn\u2019t it all look gorgeous? Obviously, I\u2019m going to have the shrimp cocktail.\u201d That is very camp, I joke. It is too soon. \u201cIs it? I just like shrimp.\u201d She orders the tomato and burrata salad.<\/p>\n
double quotation markIt signs me off to say that I\u2019m camp, or that I\u2019m a northern barmaid. We\u2019re all the sum of different parts <\/p>\n
Having watched her co-present the Eurovision song contest in 2023, having read about all those years in musical theatre, having seen her appearance as a guest judge on RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race, and her theatrical Christmas revue for Apple TV, you can see why people like me might make assumptions about her. \u201cTrust me, I would be very bored of myself if I were perpetually camp,\u201d she says. I am surprised that she is surprised by this, but to her it is a reductive read of her career. Even when it comes to the Christmas special? \u201cIt\u2019s too simple to say that it\u2019s camp, or that I\u2019m camp. What I wanted for my Christmas special was a timeless example of my voice, and something to make people smile.\u201d She uses her theatre background to pepper her performances with lightness, she explains. \u201cEven my monologue from the other night was trying to create something that is light and joyful and removes people from the humdrum of every day.\u201d You did judge the Rusical (the drag queens\u2019 musical) on RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race \u2026 \u201cYes. From musical theatre. What I\u2019m saying is, it signs me off to say that I\u2019m camp, or that I\u2019m a northern barmaid.\u201d<\/p>\n
I feel as if I\u2019ve insulted you, I say, and that wasn\u2019t my intention. \u201cThere\u2019s just a lot more to me than that,\u201d she\u00a0says. And besides, she adds, I haven\u2019t insulted her. \u201cIt\u2019s just, I would be sad if people\u2019s perceptions of me were just that. We\u2019re all the sum of different parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waddingham grew up among creative people. Her first jobs were in theatre. After years of grafting, of taking small TV roles while performing, and winning awards, in the West End and on Broadway, she had a series of breakthrough performances on screen. There was her small but mighty role in Game of Thrones<\/a>, as the \u201cshame nun\u201d Septa Unella, who rang her bell over a shaven-headed Cersei Lannister. It remains a popular meme today. On Sex Education, she was parent to the school\u2019s sensitive chief jock, Jackson. Then, during Covid, she joined that small group of actors who found themselves stuck at home and also suddenly, newly famous on a different scale, because they were in the shows that everyone was watching.<\/p>\n With Jason Sudeikis in Ted Lasso. Photograph: Michael Becker\/Apple TV<\/p>\n Her show was Ted Lasso. In it, her character took over AFC Richmond as part of a divorce settlement with her cheating husband Rupert, played by the late Anthony Head. In the first season, Rebecca sets out to destroy her ex\u2019s beloved club by hiring the inept American football coach Ted Lasso, played by Jason Sudeikis. But over the course of three seasons, he grows into the job, and she grows to love the game. The sweetness of her friendship with Sudeikis\u2019s titular coach\/manager gave it an appealing, big-hearted warmth.<\/p>\n Now, it is back for a fourth run, three years later, with a women\u2019s football team at its centre. Was Waddingham as surprised as fans that it was returning? \u201cThere were always rumblings. Of course, we finished with Keeley [Juno Temple] handing Rebecca the women\u2019s team, so I actually thought it was going to come around quicker than it has. When it didn\u2019t, you start to think, is that it? Is that ebbing away?\u201d The cast, she says, remain \u201cthick as thieves\u201d, and are constantly in touch, but she had begun to feel sad about the possibility she might never play Rebecca again. \u201cIt sounds silly and theatrical, but if you\u2019ve really felt a bond with them, losing a character is like losing a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n Does she follow women\u2019s football? \u201cI\u2019m more into women\u2019s football than men\u2019s.\u201d Karen Carney messaged her before SNL to wish her luck. She met the Lionesses Leah Williamson and Jill Scott in the early days of Ted Lasso. \u201cThey are such pioneers for my daughter\u2019s generation,\u201d she says. Her father is in his mid-80s, and he, too, prefers to watch women\u2019s football. We chat, briefly, about the hostility still aimed at female players. \u201cI was out with Mary Earps, recently. And she was saying, the amount of grief she got from her autobiography \u2026\u201d Earps experienced a considerable backlash, following comments in the book about the England manager Sarina Wiegman and her former international teammate Hannah Hampton. \u201cMy jaw was on the floor,\u201d says Waddingham. \u201cI had a level of incredulity that she [Earps] actually found funny. Maybe I\u2019m naive, but I\u00a0found the things she was saying unfathomable.\u201d<\/p>\n On the subject of hostility, Waddingham, who has a no-nonsense way about her, seems to be adept at dealing with difficult characters herself. In an interview with Glamour in 2023, she talked about modelling in her 20s, being on the receiving end of misogyny, and how she always called it out when she saw it. In 2024, she was set to host the annual Olivier awards in London. As she arrived on the red carpet, a paparazzo asked her to \u201cshow leg\u201d. Her response went viral<\/a>. \u201cOh my god, you\u2019d never say that to a man, my friend,\u201d she said, waving a finger at the culprit. \u201cDon\u2019t be a dick, otherwise I\u2019ll move off.\u201d People were supportive of what looked to be a stand against sexist double standards, and her response became a news story. \u201cI know where you\u2019re going with this,\u201d she says, warily, when I bring it up.<\/p>\n Photograph: Felicity McCabe\/The Guardiandouble quotation markI was going to host an entire evening live, and my sadness was that it had been reduced to that one photographer\u2019s comment<\/p>\n Well, people liked that you stood up to him. \u201cBecause I\u2019ve known him for 20 years and have immense respect for him,\u201d she says. So this is another case where public perception and reality are not aligned? \u201cThat\u2019s why I said, at the end of my sentence, \u2018You wouldn\u2019t say that to a man, my friend.\u2019\u201d He was actually a friend? \u201cNo, not my friend, but he\u2019s someone I\u2019ve respected as a photographer for 20 years, and we\u2019re fine now. He took it on the chin, I called him out, he emailed me, I emailed him back. I was like, \u2018Dude, that\u2019s not cool,\u2019 and fair play to him, he was apologetic, and I said, \u2018You can\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n So do you think he was being jokey? \u201cNo, I think he forgot himself. There was an overfamiliarity. I just thought, don\u2019t do that, because this is a bespoke Marchesa gown. It stopped on the mid-thigh, and it had a beautiful, diaphanous over-layer,\u201d she says. \u201cI was going off to host an entire evening live, and my sadness at the time was that [the evening] had been reduced to that, instead of my live performance directly after that, which is one of the greatest achievements of my life.\u201d The others, she says, are the birth of her daughter, being a single mother, her Christmas special, \u201cand how I hold myself, for younger women. The flip side of that is calling out moments that need to be shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n Good manners are important to Waddingham. She mentions them several times during our conversation. \u201cGood manners are more important to me than work in any form. Manners first, always,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m always mindful that my daughter is watching. So I try to be elegant and have a firm kindness about myself.\u201d Where does she think that imperative to stand up for herself comes from? \u201cThat\u2019s just inherent in how I\u2019ve been brought up. It\u2019s the old school \u2013 if you can\u2019t say something nice, don\u2019t say anything at all.\u201d She pauses. \u201cI\u2019m just aware that we\u2019re not talking about my work as much as my conduct,\u201d she says, steadily.<\/p>\n How do you mean? \u201cJust, the photographer \u2026\u201d But this is a profile of you, I say. I\u2019m trying to find out who you are. I don\u2019t think people know a lot about you. \u201cPurposefully so,\u201d she nods. \u201cWhat I mean by not talking about the work is that it\u2019s easy to get caught up in \u2013 oh, I call people out. Yes, I do, and I\u2019m proud of that.\u201d Again, she explains, she does not want to be reduced to something she is not, but also, those good manners do matter to her. \u201cWe, as the females in society, us older ones, we need to encourage the younger ones, to make sure that we are respected, because it\u2019s too easy for us to just take it on the chin.\u201d<\/p>\n As Septa Unella in Game of Thrones. Photograph: HBOIn her latest show, Ride or Die. Photograph: Du\u0161an Martin\u010dek\/Prime<\/p>\n To the work, then. Waddingham grew up in Wandsworth, south-west London, and spent her childhood in and around the theatre. Her father was a marketing director and a special constable in the river police. Her mother was a professional opera singer who took 11 years off to bring up Waddingham and her brother, then returned to work in the chorus at the English National Opera. \u201cWhich is why I wanted to film my Christmas special there,\u201d Waddingham says. \u201cApple were saying, \u2018Do it at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall. I said, \u2018No, it can only be the London Coliseum, because I\u2019ve run around there since I was a little girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It sounds as if it was almost predestined that Waddingham would become a performer. \u201cI don\u2019t remember ever wanting to do anything else. I don\u2019t know whether I would have been very good at anything else.\u201d When she was younger, she was obsessed with Whitney Houston and Ella Fitzgerald. She wanted to be the singer people would listen to, on their Walkmans, with their heads on their pillows, having big feelings. \u201cAnd I knew I wanted to be an actor as well. I didn\u2019t really have any intention of doing them together on stage.\u201d It just happened to turn out that way. \u201cI \u00a0auditioned for things, because you will need to get on the ladder and work. And it just kind of snowballed.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markI always fight the corner of theatre people, because they\u2019re certainly not in it for money or fame, and that\u2019s where I come from<\/p>\n She was always a homebody. She went to drama school, but chose one two roads over from the house in which she grew up. She still lives in south-west London. \u201cAgain, because I\u2019m old-fashioned. I have a big thing about being around my parents until I don\u2019t have them, and then I\u2019ll move.\u201d I ask if she still has her parents. Her father is still alive, but \u201cI don\u2019t have my mum,\u201d she says, sadly. Her mother died two Christmases ago, and she has found that she has only recently been able to talk about her. Tell me if I\u2019m prying. \u201cNo, no, it\u2019s fine. It\u2019s good, because she should be celebrated.\u201d She wants to speak about her. \u201cI know that I\u2019m known for being a spokeswoman for theatre as well, but that\u2019s her, and it\u2019s good that I talk about her, and I don\u2019t mind getting upset, because it is the love that you feel for someone, still.\u201d<\/p>\n It sounds as if they were very close. \u201cI suppose that\u2019s why I prickle at the idea of \u2018theatrical being big\u2019, or whatever,\u201d she says. \u201cBeing an opera singer, I used to tease her, that they would all come out and stagger, stagger, sing, stagger, drama, everything giant. But she was a very quiet, self-effacing, glorious, gentle, soft, uber-talented woman. And she was pure theatre.\u201d Later, she reiterates that she feels defensive about the theatre world. \u201cI always fight the corner of theatre people, because they\u2019re certainly not in it for money or fame, and that\u2019s where I come from,\u201d she says. Suddenly, the sharper angles of our conversation begin to make more sense.<\/p>\n Styling: Jodie Nellist. Makeup: Charlie Duffy using Dior Forever foundation and Dior Capture le Serum. Hair: Lewis Pallett at Eighteen Management using GHD. Nails: Jasmin Samavati at One Represents using Essie and Joonbyrd. Tailor: Eleanor Williams. Styling assistant: Lily Chebabo-Manning. Hannah Waddingham wears: gold disc dress and slip dress, both by Taller Marmo<\/a>; coat, by Victoria Beckham;<\/a> rings, by Foundrae<\/a>; stone ring, Waddingham\u2019s own; earrings, by Anabela Chan<\/a>; shoes, by Christian Louboutin<\/a>. Photograph: Felicity McCabe\/The Guardiandouble quotation markI\u2019m very at peace with who I am. I\u2019m more than happy to share that I\u2019m 51 and proud of it<\/p>\n What was her mother\u2019s name? \u201cMelodie Kelly. I think her parents called her Melodie because of their love of music, and now I hear my daughter singing in the shower, naturally operatic, and I think the gene pool is alive and kicking.\u201d<\/p>\n Waddingham gave birth to her daughter just weeks before filming that infamous \u201cShame!\u201d scene in Game of Thrones. She had enjoyed an acclaimed career in musical theatre, having made her West End debut in 1998, and for a long time she was a jobbing TV actor, too, doing the rounds with small parts in Brookside, Doctors, Hollyoaks and Benidorm. She auditioned for Septa Unella in Game of Thrones because she wanted to be seen by its show runners, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, though she did not expect to get it. \u201cI was eight months pregnant,\u201d she explains. \u201cPregnant from the nose out!\u201d Like her mother, she planned to take time away from work to be with her daughter. But the show was \u201ca juggernaut\u201d, she says, and when they offered it to her she couldn\u2019t turn it down. She took her daughter, then nine weeks old, on set. She could hear the baby crying during the walk of shame scene. \u201cAnd I just thought, oh my God, what am I doing?\u201d Part of her brain told her that she was working, that she was providing for her family. \u201cThe other part was going, I\u2019ve got terrible separation anxiety. So when I watch it back, I just see a woman who doesn\u2019t know whether she\u2019s coming or going.\u201d<\/p>\n Waddingham split up with her daughter\u2019s father, Italian luxury hotel manager Gianluca Cugnetto, when Kitty was small \u2013 she is now 11 \u2013 and has been a single parent since then. At the Screen Actors Guild awards, in 2024, keen eyes will have spotted that Waddingham\u2019s handbag was made of cardboard, painted in rainbow colours, with the word \u201cEpic\u201d scrawled on the top. Her daughter had made it at home. \u201cI picked it up and went, \u2018It\u2019s actually got more space in it than a normal, designer, ridiculous handbag, so I\u2019m going to take it up the red carpet.\u2019 I did it on purpose, to show her that she\u2019s never far away from me.\u201d She still feels guilty about being away when she has to work. \u201cGod, all the time. I\u2019m about to go away to do press for the next season of Ted [Lasso], and the mummy guilt descends. But I have to try and combat it.\u201d She has not done her beloved theatre since the early 2010s, in part because the hours are so demanding. \u201cI don\u2019t think my daughter is ready.\u201d She wants to be able to do eight shows a week, for at least six months, because she firmly believes that theatre audiences, paying high prices for tickets, deserve that level of commitment from performers. \u201cI need to find the time to be able to go, \u2018I\u2019m taking this coat off for now and I\u2019m putting my theatre coat back on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2024 carrying a cardboard clutch made by her daughter. Photograph: Michael Buckner\/Variety\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Waddingham took Kitty with her to Prague for five months and enrolled her in an international school, in order to shoot Ride or Die. Her character is a forensic accountant called Judith, whose entire life is a cover for her real career as a trained assassin. Judith skis, she shoots, and she loves a glass of wine. \u201cShe\u2019s an assassin of some 30 years,\u201d Waddingham says. She was asked to be in the series by her co-star Octavia Spencer, whom she calls \u201cmy magnificent counterpart\u201d, and says she still pinches herself that Spencer wanted her to do it. The series is heavy on action sequences. \u201cI did 75-80% of my own stunts. But, Rebecca, it was partly not a good idea, because I did mangle myself senseless.\u201d At its heart, though, it is a show about female friendship. Spencer plays Judith\u2019s best friend, Debbie, who inadvertently gets roped into the assassin lifestyle. \u201cIt\u2019s about calling each other out, holding each other up, and showing that women in their 50s can be all things, when they decide to chop and change.\u201d<\/p>\n Fame came late to Waddingham, who has experienced her own chopping and changing, from stage to screen. \u201cI\u2019ve talked about it to a couple of people, who\u2019ve had that thing of the \u2018overnight success\u2019 later in their careers. There are a few of us who have been right in the belly of things, working in places that are not as la-di-da as you would have in TV,\u201d she explains. \u201cAn overnight success after 25 years is delicious. And I\u2019m fine with it, because I\u2019m very at peace with who I am. I\u2019m more than happy to share that I\u2019m 51 and proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Waddingham looks at her phone and panics. \u201cOh my lord, how long have we been talking?\u201d She had told me she needed to leave after 45 minutes; we have been chatting for almost 90. \u201cI hope I\u2019ve improved your initial \u2026\u201d she says, with a laugh. Look, I say, I\u2019m a big fan of camp. \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of camp as well,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I like these profiles, because it\u2019s important for people to see that, as with anyone else, there\u2019s light and there\u2019s shade.\u201d She is rushing off to her daughter\u2019s school, to an event that her \u201clittle one\u201d had forgotten to tell her about until this morning. \u201cI\u2019m always conscious,\u201d she says, putting her baseball cap back on, \u201cthat with her school, if I\u2019m late, they\u2019re going to think, oh, bloody actors \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Ride or Die is on Amazon Prime Video now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hannah Waddingham clears her throat. Her voice is a little scratchy. Two days before we meet, the star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-697997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}