Hannah Waddingham has mentioned a drama instructor at her faculty informed her she would “never work on screen because she looks like one side of her face has had a stroke”.
The British actress, who performed Rebecca Welton in comedy collection Ted Lasso, mentioned the instructor’s remark gave her “a complex for years”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 2 podcast, Michelle Visage’s Rule Breakers, the 49-year-old theatre and TV actress mentioned: “I had one drama teacher that said to the whole class ‘Oh Hannah will never work on screen because she looks like one side of her face has had a stroke’.
“And I believed, ‘I’ll do, I’ll do. Come hell or excessive water, I’ll work on display screen’… and it gave me a fancy for years”.
Waddingham received an Emmy in 2021 for her function in Ted Lasso, and included a shout-out to skilled musical theatre performers in her acceptance speech.
“And this is why, in my Emmys speech, I made a point,” Waddingham mentioned on the podcast.
“The one thing I said to myself, ‘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 musical theatre people or theatre people to follow’.”
Waddingham additionally opened up on a few of her different points at college, together with how her headteacher discouraged her from pursuing a profession within the arts and refused to present her a reference.
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“I remember saying to my headmistress… she said, ‘Oh, you’re bright enough to read drama’, and I said, ‘I don’t want to read drama I want to do drama,” Waddingham mentioned.
“She refused to give me a reference.
“So I managed, thank God, to get a scholarship for the drama faculty I went to and I walked again in, put it on her desk and left the room with out shutting the door.
“She [the headteacher] was always dismissive of me, because it wasn’t that I wasn’t academic, I knew what I wanted to do.
“So it irritated her that I turned my again on my academia.
“So she would purposely put everyone else in the school plays and have me understudy just to punish me.”
Waddingham has gone on to have an intensive profession on stage and display screen and can be a presenter, having co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023.
The Emmy award winner additionally acquired the entertainer gong on the Glamour Women of the Year awards 2023 and fronted her personal vacation particular and musical occasion final yr.
Waddingham additionally received the most effective supporting actress in a comedy collection award on the Critics’ Choice Awards in 2022 for her efficiency in Ted Lasso.
Source: information.sky.com”