I’m 46 and almost 6ft... it’s hard to believe I’m in Hollywood
Ted Lasso star Hannah
HANNAH Waddingham proved she’s at the top of her game this week when she netted an Emmy nomination for her role in the football comedy Ted Lasso.
But the actress, who plays club boss Rebecca in the heart-warming Apple+ show, hasn’t always been treated with the respect a woman in charge deserves.
Hannah, who shot to TV fame as Tonya Dyke in ITV comedy Benidorm, said: “I’d never been groped in my life, but I was groped three times in one week in Benidorm.
“To get on set, I had to walk through the hotel dressed as Tonya in some non-existent bikini and high heels with blokes gawping at me… or rather groping me.
“I had to stop myself doing what I’d instinctively do – knock their blocks off – because I was working.
“A little angel on my shoulder was going, ‘Leave it, Hannah’. But I really wanted to take off my five-inch wedges and whack them.”
FRUMPY
Despite the challenging working conditions, Hannah’s portrayal of the blonde beauty therapist helped land her the role of Septa Unella in Game Of Thrones in 2015.
And she reckons playing the devout and frumpy character helped make her a better actress.
She said: “It was the first time I had looked so utterly hideous in something. But it informed me so much about looking inwards instead of giving a s*** what you looked like on camera.”
Before TV, Londoner Hannah worked in the capital’s theatres, where her roles included the Lady of the Lake in Monty Python musical Spamalot.
She said: “My life’s work was to sing and act, and whatever that was was fine by me – and wherever it took me was fine.
“Having that 20 years of grafting, really grafting in theatre – having to be muscular and using your body and voice live to the nth degree, six days a week – is no small thing.
“By the time you get to TV, there is no inch of yourself that you do not know. Theatre is where you cut your teeth and find out what you are good at.”
Hannah is clearly good in her latest role, opposite Jason Sudeikis and Juno Temple in Ted Lasso. The second series will be available from Friday.
As well as her Emmy nomination, she has already won best supporting actress at the Critics’ Choice Awards for the role of Rebecca.
Her main inspiration for the character was Apprentice star and West Ham United FC chief Baroness Karren Brady.
Hannah said: “Karren is such an unapologetically glamorous woman, but she doesn’t for a second forget her power, and how that’s all right.” She relates to
Rebecca, who finds herself single and left in charge of a football club after a bitter divorce.
Hannah said: “I’m perfectly happy to admit I’m 46 and a single mum. To be given this opportunity to play a woman who’s also not in a conventional situation… you don’t get that a lot on television. You don’t get to see the warts and all.”
Hannah says that working with
Jason was like a “huge hug” – and she hopes their on-screen antics gave audiences a lift during the pandemic.
But the actress is still coming to terms with her success as Rebecca.
Hannah said: “I think being a 5ft 11in, 46-yearold woman, these things don’t come around for women that are my age or look like me very often.
“So now… I just can’t fathom what is happening,”
halina.watts@mirror.co.uk
Theatre is where you cut your teeth and see what you are good at HANNAH ON HONING
HER CRAFT ON STAGE