‘Ted Lasso’ alum Hannah Waddingham was told she’d ‘never work’ on TV: Your face ‘had a stroke’

nypost.com:

on her BBC podcast “Rule Breakers.” “I thought, I will do. Come hell or high water, I will work on screen,” she told Visage, 55, who had asked Waddingham what was the biggest rule she had ever broken.

The British actress said the harsh words “gave me a complex for years.” According to Waddingham, who won an Emmy award for her role as Richmond FC owner Rebecca Welton in the Apple TV+ series in 2021, she used her teacher’s words as an influence in her acceptance speech. “In my Emmys speech, I made a point – the one thing I said to myself [was] if this weird moment comes and I get this award, and I get my foot in this door, I’m going to rip it off its hinges for music theatre people, or theatre people, to follow,” Waddingham stated.

According to the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” judge, her longtime friend did the right thing. “You could go either one or two ways with that,” said Visage. “You could either break down and hate your life and be depressed or you could rise up and do what you did and accept ‘oh I actually I’m gonna show you.'” “But that says more about that teacher saying that to a child with stars in their eyes,” Visage added. “I would say that was my biggest rule break ever – to go, ‘You know what?

I’m just going to see,'” Waddingham stated. The “Hocus Pocus 2” star would go on to appear in London stage musicals including Spamalot, Into the Woods, and The Wizard of Oz, and receive three Olivier Award nominations.“I used to knacker myself senseless,” she went on.