Hannah also admitted to keeping a mental list of the producers who refused to give her a chance before she got her big break — and even revealed that the Game of Thrones showrunners had to email the “powers that be” at Ted Lasso to convince them to cast her.
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Last month, Hannah Waddingham went viral when she boldly called out a misogynistic comment made by a male photographer as she posed on the red carpet ahead of hosting the Olivier Awards in London.
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In a video from the event, the 49-year-old actor did not hide her outrage after she was seemingly told to show off her legs for the camera, with Hannah exclaiming for all to hear: “Oh my god, you’d never say that to a man! Don’t be a dick; otherwise, I’ll move on. Don’t say: ‘Show them your legs,’ no.”
She then shook her head and walked away while wagging her finger to reiterate her disapproval, with the star being widely praised for her response at the time.
The powerful display came just months after Hannah had opened up about experiencing sexism throughout her career, and how she learned to call out misogyny and other bad behavior from a very early age.
“I think it’s important that when you see someone behaving badly, you call them out and batter them over the head with it,” Hannah told Glamour magazine. “I had an incident fairly recently where I heard a sound guy on set say something that I didn’t like to someone, so I said, down my microphone in front of everyone: ‘Do you want to repeat that?’”
“And then I repeated what he had said to the person,” she went on. “He started trying to fluff the situation, so I said: ‘No, if you are going to be the big man, come and say it on this microphone.’ They marched him out of the place before he’d even started the gig, and the producers bought the person that he’d been rude to a bottle of champagne with his wages for the night.”
And in a recent podcast appearance, Hannah opened up some more about how she has stood up for herself and other actors throughout her career — before admitting that she keeps a “little list” of people who refused to give her a chance on her rise to global stardom.
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For context, before Hannah was the Emmy-winning actor starring in TV shows like Ted Lasso and Game of Thrones and movies such as The Fall Guy and the upcoming eighth installment of theMission: Impossible franchise, she was an established theater actor for over 20 years.
She made her debut in London’s prestigious West End in 1998, and has been a leading lady in several productions both there and on Broadway over the decades.
And Hannah explained that because of this, she struggled to be taken seriously in TV and movies in her home country of the UK — despite TV and movie actors facing no issue transitioning to theater.
Breaking down the hypocrisy on the Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist podcast, Hannah said: “At the time, I had 10 years of being a leading lady in the West End and really got a bit between my teeth that there were TV and film people who could come into theater…but going back that way didn’t happen.”
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“In the UK, it was: ‘Well, hold on, are you this or are you that?’” she continued. “There was kind of a feeling at the time of being greedy, and I thought: ‘Well, no, if they can do it, why can’t I do it?’”
Hannah then recalled being given the occasional scene in filmed productions, but found that she and her theater peers weren’t treated as equals to the other actors on set. The most notable production in this instance was Tom Hooper’s 2012 movie adaptation of the esteemed book-turned-musical Les Misérables.
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Hannah briefly appears in the film, performing as part of an ensemble for the song “At the End of the Day” alongside Anne Hathaway. While the leading cast for the movie was made up of A-list names and established movie stars, the background actors and ensemble performers were mainly lesser-known musical theater actors.
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Reflecting on her experience on set, Hannah said: “Tom Hooper and I had a gentle falling out because he asked somebody else to get all us musical theater people to bring it down, and I heard it, and I’d had enough. And because I was just doing one scene, I thought: ‘I’m just gonna have to say something,’ and I said: ‘Can I just stop you there?’”
Hannah admitted that the atmosphere on set immediately shifted as she added: “I just had enough, at this point, of feeling like I should be grateful for a scene in this and a scene in that, and it’ll add up and eventually something will happen. I just had enough of it.”
Pointing out her fellow ensemble actors’ impressive theater credentials, Hannah said: “I say: ‘You do realize that this girl here is playing Fantine, the whole role, in the West End at the moment? Every night? This girl here is currently playing Elphaba… And we’re all here doing one scene for the greater good of this movie. Can I remind you that all these people, you wouldn’t have a film to direct unless people were in the West End or Broadway.’”
“‘It is a total vocation. You wouldn’t have a film to direct if we didn’t do the hard work on stage. If you want us to take it down, ask us to take it down,’” she went on, revealing that Tom immediately took her comments on board, and they were later able to laugh about the incident. “We were fine after that, but I just thought: ‘No, don’t presume that people in theater can only do that, ask us to do that — ask us to just do nothing, give people a chance to prove themselves, don’t write us all off!’”
Hannah went on to credit the British show Benidorm for giving her her big break in the TV industry in 2014, followed by Game of Thrones the next year. Hannah plays the “Shame” nun, Septa Unella, in the HBO fantasy series, and she admitted on the podcast that she thought she had no chance of landing the role, and only went to the audition in the hope of meeting showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for future opportunities.
HBO / Via youtube.com
Once she was cast, Hannah said that “it was almost like them allowing me [the role] made everyone else pick up a bit.”
In 2020, Hannah landed arguably her most prominent breakout TV role in Ted Lasso, but despite the show’s creator and star Jason Sudeikis wanting to cast Hannah right away, she said that a couple of other people involved in the decision were “unsure” because she was “less known” — and Benioff and Weiss ended up writing “the powers that be” an email advocating for her.
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“It’s so lovely because Dan Weiss’s email, the subject was: ‘What Are We Even Discussing Here?’ and that meant the world to me,” Hannah recalled. “To have an endorsem*nt from people like that, he’s a very quiet, lovely man, Dan — I’ve always been so grateful to them because it was such a beautiful, quiet, genuine endorsem*nt of: 'Let the girl play!’”
As you're probably aware, Hannah was hugely successful on the series, and even won an Emmy for her performance.
And now that Hannah has finally managed to successfully transition from theater to screens, she is proactive in using her newfound power to try and help other lesser-known talents get their foot in the door.
She said: “I love it because it means I’m established enough to say: ‘Go and look in that doorway, go and get her, go and get him — he’s 70 and brilliant, that’s the one you’re looking for, not the same old face that everyone knows!’”
And this mentality goes both ways, with Hannah later admitting that she also mentally keeps a “small list” of people in the industry who didn’t want to know her on her way up, but are now getting in contact.
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She explained: “I’m not going to lie, there are a few producers that are now suddenly like: ‘Is there a book you want to develop or…’ and I’m just like: ‘No, you’re alright, just look somewhere else.’ Because we’re human and we remember, so no. Bog off!”
- Ted Lasso
- Game of Thrones
- Les Misérables
- Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeed Staff
