In Conversation With Hannah Waddingham
Hannah was photographed at New York’s AKA Central Park by Alison Engstrom; styling by James Yardley and Cristina Ehrlich; makeup by Gita Bass; hair by Patrick Kyle for Exclusive Artists using Kerastase.
I could wax poetic for a very long time about my love for all things ‘Ted Lasso’. Congratulations on clinching an Emmy nomination and for being the first time a new show has received a record-breaking 20 Emmy nominations, Very well deserved!
What’s so great is when you get to something of that level, hand on my heart, I am just thrilled to be nominated. The amount of brilliant actors, I know, who have never been acknowledged for anything because it hasn’t gone that way for them. I am genuinely thinking, let’s go and have a nice night because there are so many of us, seven in the category, so I am not holding my breath.
So Amazing! You grew up in a family of performers, your mom, grandmother and grandfather were all opera singers. When did you realize that you were going to follow in a similar path?
I bucked against opera in particular even though I knew it was my actual sound. In my teens, I said I would do this or that but then when I started doing slightly more classical shows like Kiss Me Kate or The Pirate Queen, which I did last February, that sound came out, I was like dammit—it was just there (laughs). I had been fighting against it for years; my mom always said, in your 40s your operatic voice will be the biggest tool that you have.
How did you get the ball rolling PROFESSIONALLY speaking?
I remember that I didn’t want to do anything else; I always knew I was going to sing, act and dance. I knew it was just in me. I had grown up going to the London Coliseum and the National Opera when my mom went back to work. She took eleven years off to bring up me and my brother. She was a principal at Covenant Garden before I was born, but then she decided to be in the chorus for job security and for our family. I used to sit in the auditorium of the English National Opera soaking it all up like a little sponge, so it started there. I remember hearing that people worked in offices when I was younger and said, they do what? They go to the same place every day and do what? Fine for other people but my brain, oh no, no no (laughs). So naturally I thought that wasn’t for me. My parents wouldn’t let me go to drama school, when I was little, but I always did tap, modern, ballet, and jazz dance from the age of three. I went all the way through ballet until I was on blocks and the teacher was like, Mr. and Mrs. Waddingham I hate to say this but your daughter is a giant (laughs). I didn’t want to be a ballerina per se, but I certainly didn’t want to stop at 14 when I had just gotten onto blocks. So that went to the wayside and I carried on with other types of dance and then I went to drama school. I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want to do straight theater, I also didn’t just want to be a singer. What I wanted to do was albums and be a singer in big band and swing and keep acting separate, but because I had those two things, musicals just seemed to happen. They offer you a lovely main part and you get on with it.
When would you say you became confident in performing or since you started at such a young age, would you say it was ingrained in you?
It was always there, but I never had singing lessons in my life until I did Kiss Me Kate when I was 38. I knew I had to go from high operatic trilling soprano to belting diva and I knew I had to shout. I had to find almost a reset button where I would come off stage and replace my voice when it needed to be for the next section, so I went to someone for vocal health. I made a point to say, I don’t want you to tell me how to sing and I don’t want to know how I sing because I like the fact that my voice is organic. I don’t want to sound like everyone else, I just wanted to look after it. Then when I did The Pirate Queen, I knew I had to do it, on my mother’s stage let me point out, it was in the London Coliseum, and my mom, who now has Parkinson’s, was sitting there watching me that night. It really came full circle. The part was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg who wrote Les Misérables and I had to sing full operatic soprano and I didn’t want to let anyone down and I had classical operatic training for that.
Hannah is wearing a Dolce & Gabbana dress.
How would you describe the path to where you are now, was it exciting, confounding, did you have to persevere, did you feel lost at times?
I would have to say it’s a little bit of all of it to be fair. There were times when I was absolutely flying—I have had the most magnificent musical theater career that I am hugely grateful for and proud that I was afforded that luxury. Every single part I played I loved but I feel like it particularly started to rev-up when I worked with Andrew Lloyd Weber, which was my calling card for everyone else to join in. I had Trevor Nunn in my team and I did A Little Night Music for him and then Kiss Me Kate. I thought there wasn’t anything else I would want to do than work with Sir Trevor Nunn doing the Shakespearean musical. I had been hammering at the door of television for years. On this side of the pond, I was afforded this courteous little, we aren’t ignoring you but here is a little something, for years. That was my frustration, you talk about the highs and the lows, the frustration of being treated like, you are mainly a singer, and you are like, no, no, give me a chance and I am not. I would say that about most West End performers, I have a real bee in my bonnet about that. Broadway performers, I would say in general are absolutely lauded as being triple threats where as here it’s like, oh you sing, or you do musicals, which means you can’t do all of it, that’s simply not true. There are outstanding people in the West End.
That’s so frustrating, you have to wait for someone to give you the opportunity even when you know in your heart that you can do it.
I had done Benidorm, a massive comedy series here, a real flagship series on one of our main channels here ITV, so I did that and then I thought I had nudged that door open. The next audition I had, after I had fallen pregnant, was for a little known show called Game of Thrones. It was completely opposite to Benidorm where I was very dolly, I thought, if I can get this role, then I have to be let in, come on! I’ve never cared what I looked like on-screen or in a character but if it fits the role, I am down with it. I love that it was David Benioff, Derren Litten, and Dan Weiss from Game of Thrones, who let me in dramatically. I have those men to thank for that and Sir Trevor Nunn to thank for my theater career.
One of the things I heard you say was you manifested the role oN ‘ted lasso’. When did you first realize this was possible to connect with the universe in this incredible way?
I never thought I could, I mean who knows if it was coincidence but I did feel it and harness it enough. I feel like everything lined up and and was like right, listen to me: thank you for everything you have given me; I don’t take it lightly and I never will but you know what, I am a single mom and I need to be at home with my girl and by the way please let me have something I can get my teeth into, not in an arrogant way. This side of the pond if you know your worth and you know what you want to give to something I feel like sometimes they treat you like you are arrogant. There is a big difference between knowing your worth and wanting to share it and being arrogant. I felt like I had a push at that moment where I said, please somebody, effing notice me because I have a lot to give. It’s about taking the risk to ask.
That’s incredible, i believe in manifesting, WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Now to talk about the show—it’s hopeful, funny, full of heart and so much more. When did you realize it was something special?
I knew it was going to be special, if I tell you I only received not only the pilot but also Rebecca’s sides. I had no idea the trajectory of anything; I had no idea about Ted and his wife, Keely coming along. I knew that this woman has this team and this guy comes along who she has found on the internet, boom, done. I had no idea who they would get to be so brilliant who be Rupert, played by Anthony Head. I had no idea of being paired up with my beloved Juno Temple. I see it as just kismet.
There are some lines in the show that you and your co-stars say that have had me laughing so hard.Was it at all fun, challenging, easy to slip into a comedy role?
I don’t think of Rebecca as being funny; I think she should just be honest and if the audience finds her funny then that’s great. I remember years ago, I worked with Mike Nichols doing Spamalot, which was a huge privilege, he told us all in a monotone voice: by the way, the script is funny, you are not funny. Don’t laugh at yourself. I have never forgotten it. Certainly with Rebecca when I am doing the spitting of the biscuits that is not her finding herself being funny, she doesn’t know where the biscuits come from.
Where do those biscuits come from and are they good?
I think they keep them in an unsealed Tupperware box (laughs). The first year they were not great and now they were better because I talked about it so much.
What I love so much about her is you see her slowly softening at the end of season one and we find her starting to be open to finding love again. The facade crumbles and it shows the pain she has had to endure. What have you love most about the progression of her and where do you ultimately want to see her go?
I like where she is going—the thing I was concerned about was her being far too together in season two, mind you, we have only moved on about five or six months. We all know, you definitely have not gotten over that and gotten your shit together with that trauma or had an epiphany in five or six months. I love that she is very much, the absolute figure head of that football team and she wants to be for the first time. Make no mistake, she is that lioness and if you touch her boys, she will rip your heads off, that’s a seismic shift. But in all other ways, she is still an absolute disaster (laughs).
I love that because you see high ranking people all put together and it’s refreshing to see the flaws.
That bit I manifested, I said I didn’t want to just play ball-busters or bimbos. It was literally witch or bitch (laughs). I am 6’2” with blonde hair and boobs they are like, oh she is this. It took David Benioff and Dan Vice to go, if we do this, and boom. Ted Lasso affords me the luxury of all those ranges of emotions, regardless of what you look like. I got to tap into all of the insecurities, the joys and the angers that we all have but it allows me to do it in one scene within two sentences. I worry that I will never experience that again because it is such a gift.
Your character and Keely, played by juno temple, are two Opposite personalities but they get along and look out for each other. I just love that! So often we are quick to judge if someone seems to walk through life differently than we do.
Yes and now in season two it is increasingly obvious that they would be lost without each other. I don’t know where else I have seen that other than Thelma and Louise.
Has there been anyone in your life who has really encouraged you to see a dream through à la Ted Lasso?
One-hundred percent Sir Trevor Nunn. The first time he and I came across each other was the audition for A Little Nights Music for the part as Desiree Armfeldt. For people who don’t know—she sings Send in the Clowns—she has always been played historically by women in their late 50s or early 60s. He and I met and I remember him walking around me while I was singing and saying a monologue. He was working out whether he could age the show down so I could play that part and age the entire cast down. It was because he had seen the original film, Smiles Of A Summer Night, he took that inspiration and for him to risk that and champion me like that I have never forgotten. I am so pleased we were able to work together again on Kiss Me Kate. I have a lot to be thankful for, he taught me how to to work on screen while being on stage and to bring the audience in even, if there are1,000 people.
What is one thing you know now to be true that you didn’t know when starting out in your career?
Listen to the good and let the bad filter out.
What else do you want to put out into the universe?
I want to do musical film; I am so ready I am literally like a greyhound waiting to get out on that effing track.
Follow Hannah Waddingham on Instagram
Stream new episodes of ‘Ted Lasso’ every friday on Apple TV+
A very special thank you to the team and AKA Central Park for hosting.