Search icon

Celebrity

31st Jan 2024

‘I’m glad it didn’t happen when I was 20’ – Hannah Waddingham opens up about finding success later in life

Jody Coffey

Hannah Waddingham is Mother

In the last couple of years, Hannah Waddingham’s acting career has really taken off, both on the small and big screen.

The actress even has future projects already secured for this year and 2025.

Hannah, who is 49 years old, found her biggest successes in her 40s, something she says she wouldn’t change.

Speaking to The Sun, the actress confessed that making it at this stage of her life feels ‘more special’.

“You know, I’ll be 50 and can celebrate that and the fact that I’ve gone into everything with a full heart and given 100 per cent to it,” she told the outlet.

“And I’m glad that it didn’t happen when I was 20, 25, 30, because I know who I am. I don’t apologise for who I am.”

The Ted Lasso star played Rebecca, the owner of a fictional Premier League football team called AFC Richmond, in the Apple TV+ series.

This role, she says, ‘changed her life’, and accredited her co-star, Jason Sudeikis, for taking a chance on her, adding that casting was more difficult for her because of her height.

“Being a woman who is not small, I’d always struggled.

“The amount of times they’d be like, ‘Well, we have cast a guy who is 5ft 7in’, or, ‘We’ve already cast a guy that is this big’. And you are like, ‘OK’.”

However, Sudeikis, who also worked as a co-creator of the series, overlooked all of that and celebrated her differences.

Ted Lasso, Hannah adds, was the job that really blew ‘the doors open’ on her career.

“I was, like 45 when we started shooting, which in itself is fabulous and unusual — it’s ridiculous that it is so unusual.”

“But the fact he was like, ‘I don’t care that she is taller than me’, that is unique — where the man is so generous they want to raise you up and celebrate everything you are, not that you are some skinny mini.”

“Even if you are 6ft 2in in heels you still have every kind of doubtful thought and every vulnerability as much as the next person,” she added.

Hannah has also appeared on seasons five and six of the fantasy drama, Game of Thrones, as the bell-ringing Septa Unella, as well as the comedy-drama series, Sex Education.

READ MORE: