Most actors dread a bad review, but Hannah Waddingham credits the critics for catapulting her to the next phase of her career.
It was 2000, and Waddingham had recently wrapped a musical about artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. The show closed early after a panning in the press, but Waddingham’s turn as Toulouse-Lautrec’s lover, Suzanne Valadon, was singled out for praise. As one British newspaper put it: “She deserves to be in a better musical.”
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Her standout performance led theater impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber to handpick the 26-year-old for a project he was writing with Ben Elton called “The Beautiful Game.” “He said anyone that can have rave reviews in something that receives such bad reviews is the kind of person I want to work with,” Waddingham recalls.
Arriving at Lloyd Webber’s opulent Central London home for a preproduction meeting, Waddingham found the man behind some of theater’s greatest hits sitting at a piano. “He was tinkling around and saying, ‘Well, I’ve had Elaine in this key’ — you know, Elaine Paige — ‘I’ve had Glenn in this key’” — that is, Glenn Close — “‘and I thought we might sit you here,’” she says, miming fingers on a keyboard.
If “The Beautiful Game,” which tells the story of a Belfast soccer team against the backdrop of the conflict in Northern Ireland, marked Waddingham’s breakout theater role, it would take a further two decades before another soccer-themed show brought her to global attention, when she landed the part of AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton in Apple TV’s hit series “Ted Lasso.”
Waddingham always knew she’d be a performer. “Whether it be acting, song, dance,” she says. “I just couldn’t have imagined doing anything else.” After leaving school, she enrolled at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts but dropped out after two years to join “Joey and Gina’s Wedding,” an improv dinner show in the basement of London’s Café Royal restaurant, where the audience played the wedding guests as the nuptials descended into chaos.
So convincing were the actors that, despite having bought tickets, some of the attendees were persuaded they’d crashed a real wedding, even apologizing for not bringing a gift. Inevitably, given the show’s spontaneity, things occasionally went wrong. Flowers were accidentally set on fire. An audience member who fled to the bathroom to vomit was swiftly set upon by an actor trying to incorporate them into a scene. “It was absolute carnage but great fun,” Waddingham recalls. It “just shoved you headlong into improvisation,” she says.
Coincidentally, the Café Royal is where we meet on a May afternoon, the venue long since transformed into a tony hotel. Waddingham — barefoot, having kicked off a pair of black stilettos — is semi-reclined on a sofa in the wood-paneled Tudor Suite, just a few floors up from where she began her career. “How lovely and full circle is this,” she says.
While Waddingham is indelibly associated with musicals (even her turn on “Saturday Night Live U.K.” earlier this month saw her singing in most of the sketches), it’s been a number of years since she appeared in one, aside from a small role as a factory worker in Tom Hooper’s 2012 adaptation of “Les Misérables.”
Is it true she tested for the role of Madame Morrible in the film adaptation of “Wicked”? “No, I didn’t! This is the funniest thing,” she responds. “We can put this to bed once and for all.”
Waddingham reveals that although she talked to Cynthia Erivo about the role (they’ve been friends since appearing together in a West End presentation of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” in 2015), they soon discovered Michelle Yeoh already nabbed the part. “I was like, ‘I think it’s gone.’ She was like, ‘Dude, I think it’s gone as well.’”
“I would have loved to have been seen for that”— Waddingham draws out the word “loved” — “but it was a fait accompli, as they say.”
The deficit of musical films on her CV is not for lack of trying. “That’s what’s always eluded me. Whenever I see them, I think, ‘Oh, come on!’ I mean, I would absolutely love to,” she says. Is there a particular one she’s holding out for? “There is, but I’m keeping it under my hat because I want to do it. Goddamn it!” she erupts.
In the meantime, of course, there’s the small matter of “Ted Lasso.” Season 3, which came out three years ago, handed Rebecca something of a decisive (and happy) ending — a new purpose with the women’s team and love on the horizon — but Waddingham says she suspected the show would return. “Because that’s too much of a cliffhanger to be had,” she says. “But I’m so glad it has.” The idea of never playing Rebecca again felt “like losing a pal.”
Season 3 was delayed due to production issues, including, reportedly, co-creator Jason Sudeikis’ endless rewrites. Did Season 4 run more smoothly? “There’s always going to be a bit of give-and-take within a scene, because of the nature of how Sudeikis works,” she says. “He hears it in the room, and then we tweak. With that boy, you’ve got to roll with the punches. He and I have an ongoing love-hate relationship that he changes it last minute.”
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“Ted Lasso” was the most-watched streaming original of 2023, per Nielsen, racking up an eye-popping 283 million viewing hours. Why does she think the show is so popular? “I love the positivity in it,” Waddingham says. “I am blessed that I am in this AFC Richmond family.”
The affection among the cast appears genuine: Waddingham says they keep in touch so regularly it would be “odd” if she didn’t hear from at least one of them in a week. “I was chatting to Brett Goldstein yesterday,” she says.
Goldstein says he was a fan of Waddingham’s before they’d started working together. “I’d seen her in a number of musicals before I met her,” he says. “I was so excited to work with her that I probably came across as a stalker at the first read through. Luckily, I didn’t scare her off. I am a huge Hannah stan.”
Waddingham is less enthused about the idea of Ted (played by Sudeikis) and Rebecca hooking up, despite some of the fan base fantasizing about the prospect. “I love that we buck against the norm,” she says of the duo’s platonic relationship. “And they are undoubtedly soulmates, but that can mean a myriad of things.” She can understand why fans are rooting for a romantic union, but sidesteps further questioning, saying firmly: “I love all the relationships in it.”
Unsurprisingly, “Ted Lasso” has dominated Waddingham’s career since it launched in 2020. Outside the show, she has mostly done voice work (for animated films including “Lilo & Stitch” and “The Garfield Movie”), as well as the odd supporting role in big-budget fare such as “The Fall Guy” and “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.” This summer she is set to lead a new comic drama, “Ride or Die,” a high-octane buddy caper created by Tessa Coates in which Waddingham stars opposite Octavia Spencer.
The eight-episode series, which drops on Prime Video on July 15, sees the two actresses playing BFFs who go on the run together after an assassination goes wrong: Waddingham is Judith, a mercenary masquerading as an accountant, while Spencer is a spurned politician’s wife. Waddingham says she did almost 80% of her own stunts “and nearly killed myself” in the process. “I thought it was a good idea at the time,” she laughs.
Did she call her “Mission Impossible” colleague Tom Cruise for advice? “I didn’t, but, God, he makes it look easy, and it’s absolutely not.”
“Ride or Die” landed in Waddingham’s lap after Coates and Spencer approached her directly to play Judith. After receiving an email inviting her to a Zoom with the duo, Waddingham — unaware they planned to offer her a role — said she racked her brains trying to work out why they wanted to speak to her. “And Octavia’s whole face filled the screen and just went, ‘We want you to play Judith, dummy!’” Waddingham recalls, beaming. “It was lovely. I just couldn’t speak.”
She acknowledges she’s at a stage in her career where she no longer always has to audition but is clear she doesn’t take it for granted. “I would never be so arrogant as to — if a director or producer doesn’t know my work, I would never say, ‘Well, I’m not meeting.’”
Given that luxury, is she picking and choosing her projects carefully? “Well, not only picking and choosing,” she says, explaining that “irritatingly,” on occasion she has to turn down roles because her calendar is so packed. “Which is currently driving me nuts because I form attachments to roles when they feel right very quickly,” she says. “You do get a bit of a twitch on when you see somebody else do it.”
When I probe whether it’s the return of “Ted Lasso” that’s holding her back, she’s quick to correct me, saying: “Oh, no, there’s a million things that I’m juggling at the same time.” (Waddingham is also a single parent to an 11-year-old daughter.)
Coiled on the sofa, Waddingham appears relaxed, but is adept at batting away questions that have the potential to elicit a controversial answer. For example, when I ask how she handles compensation in the age of streaming buyouts, especially on a show as popular as “Ted Lasso,” she replies, “I think it’s a personal thing, and it has to be on a case by case, you know?”
One area where she doesn’t hold back is artificial intelligence. “No actor should allow that to happen,” she says of jobs that include manipulating performances with AI. “End of story.”
Waddingham says she guards her privacy fiercely, to the extent she’s reluctant to name her favorite farmer’s market in London lest it lose its anonymity — and by extension hers. “Whether people think I am or not, I am a very private person, and you have to keep something for you,” she says.
She would prefer the focus to be on her work, but isn’t it increasingly difficult in a world where public figures, no matter how unqualified, are expected to opine on everything from wellness to global politics?
“I just feel like everyone hangs on the words of our community too much,” she says, ready to wrap up. “I try to leave good content on camera. I love playing the parts I play. I’m looking forward to what comes next, and that’s that.”
Charity Spotlight: Make-a-Wish U.K.
Hannah Waddingham’s 11-year-old daughter is always front of mind. “She is my reason. She is my moral compass. Everything I do, everywhere I go, I wonder what she will think of it,” Waddingham says.
The actress is candid about the fact that she swapped stage for screen partly due to the incompatibility of treading the boards and reading bedtime stories. Today, she’s rushing
off to pick up her “little boss” from school.
Waddingham first came across Make-a-Wish U.K. 15 years ago and was immediately struck by its work. The original wish-granting organization was founded in the U.S. in 1980. Its U.K. counterpart launched six years later, and today there are affiliates in almost 50 countries around the world, all dedicated to making dreams come true for the most critically ill children, whether that’s arranging for them to star in their own film, feed a tiger, meet their favorite celebrity or visit Disneyland.
“If I can raise any money to help the parents of children that are so deeply [unwell], then I’m here for it all day long,” Waddingham says.