Hannah Waddingham is enjoying bigger career success than ever before – but she has opened up about the guilt she feels over being away from her daughter while starring in films and TV shows.
The Ted Lasso and Ride or Die star said she experiences “mummy guilt” all the time when she’s apart from Kitty, who is 11.
She also told The Guardian that she hasn’t done theatre since the early 2010s due to the demanding hours, stating: “I don’t think my daughter is ready.”
Waddingham, a musical theatre star, made her TV break with a small, but memorable role as Septa Unella in Game of Thrones, following which she was cast as AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso, which is returning for a fourth season next month.
The actor has also had film roles in blockbuster sequel Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, action comedy The Fall Guy, and can currently be seen in comedy series Ride or Die alongside Octavia Spencer.
Elsewhere, in the interview, Waddingham revealed the truth behind her decision to rebuke a photographer at a red carpet event, explaining that she had known the man for 20 years.
In 2024, she was set to host the Olivier Awards and, upon arriving at the event, posed for photographs outside the Royal Albert Hall
But the star was left visibly frustrated when a member of the press asked her to “show me leg”, telling him: “Oh my God, you’d never say that to a man, my friend. Don’t be a d***, otherwise I’ll move off. Don’t say ‘show me leg.’ No.”
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Waddingham has now said that, while the photographer was not “a friend”, she has “known him for 20 years” and has “immense respect for him”.
She added that they’re “fine now”, stating: “He took it on the chin, I called him out, he emailed me, I emailed him back. I was like, ‘Dude, that’s not cool,’ and fair play to him, he was apologetic, and I said, ‘You can’t do that.’
“I think he forgot himself. There was an overfamiliarity.”
Reflecting on the moment, which went viral, Waddingham said she was wary that her hosting duties would be overshadowed by someone drawing attention to her body.
”I just thought, don’t do that, because this is a bespoke Marchesa gown. It stopped on the mid-thigh, and it had a beautiful, diaphanous over-layer. I was going off to host an entire evening live, and my sadness at the time was that it had been reduced to that, instead of my live performance directly after that, which is one of the greatest achievements of my life.”
