Five mind-blowing facts about Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham

It’s hardly an overstatement to call Hannah Waddingham a British national treasure. The West End-legend-come-TV star has delivered a series of iconic performances in the likes of musicals Spamalot and Kiss Me, Kate, and series like Game of Thrones and Sex Education. 

The 50-year-old actress also plays businesswoman Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso, where she has earned multiple accolades, including a Primetime Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award. 

LGBTQ+ sports experts praised the series for its “significant” depiction of gay male professional footballers after fictional AFC Richmond player Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) had a moving coming out story.

With a long-awaited season four of the series appearing to be greenlit, as per Variety, now is a perfect time to run through some interesting facts about AFC Richmond’s own Waddingham. 

Hannah Waddingham is a staunch LGBTQ+ ally

The star has garnered a strong queer following, thanks to her performances in West End favourites and on-screen with Willow, as well as her 2022 judging panel appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. 

In an interview with Attitude Magazine, Waddingham explained that her support for the LGBTQ+ community is “everything”. 

“It wouldn’t cross my mind to not lift the LGBTQ community up,” she told the outlet. 

“Too often, people look at the exterior of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s why I wanted to do RuPaul’s Drag Race because I wanted to take a look into the brilliant performers people are as well and to not just be defined by the obvious things that everyone else defines them by.”

Ted Lasso is not her first time around the block — or rather, the pitch

Before Ted Lasso launched in 2020, Waddingham already had acting experience in a football series. The star appeared in an episode of the iconic ITV drama Footballers’ Wives, which told the stories of the women married to members of the fictional Premier League football team Earls Park F.C. 

Waddingham portrayed tennis pro Jools, who was a fleeting love interest for club boss Hazel Bailey, played by Alison Newman. 

She made it to the Official Chart Top 100

This may come as a surprise, but our acting queen actually released a single back in 2000 – and made it to the Official Chart Top 100. 

Waddingham featured in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton’s West End production of The Beautiful Game, set during the Troubles in Belfast in the 60s. 

In the musical, the star performed the track “Our Kind Of Love” which she later released as a single under the mononym “Hannah”. Cut to October of that year, and the song peaked at 41 on the Official Singles Chart, just narrowly missing a spot on the UK Top 40. 

Waddingham gave her daughter a sweet token for when she’s away for work

Away from the limelight, Waddingham is a single mum of a 10-year-old girl. Despite her child being understanding of her mum “going away and doing all the things so we can do our things,” the star recalled to BBC Radio 2, she gave her child a sweet token to remember her by whilst she’s away filming or performing.

The actress keeps her Primetime Emmy Award in her daughter’s bedroom, to remind her daughter that “mummy will only ever be away when it’s for a really, blooming good reason”.

She thought her height would hinder her TV and film career

Waddingham stands at a stunning five foot 11 inches and initially believed that her height would hinder her TV and film TV. 

She told Glamour UK in an interview: “It was a constant thing of, ‘Oh no, we’d love to use her, but we’ve already cast the man. He’s 5’8, but we’ve already cast.

“I could never work out whether it was a height thing or whether it was just that I wasn’t established enough.”

However, her role on Ted Lasso came about as her co-star Jason Sudeikis wasn’t intimidated by Waddingham’s height. The star called it “a completely unique situation to find yourself in where the man is so generous that they want to raise you up”.

She told The View: “[He] was like, ’I don’t care if she wears four-inch heels. Let’s do it.”