Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Bruce. Thank you for pulling up
Speaker 1: a chair today our Table for two.
Speaker 2: We are back in Hollywood at my favorite joint, the
Speaker 2: Sunset Tower.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go trouble fries and I hadn't thought that.
Speaker 1: Today we're having lunch with an actress.
Speaker 2: If you might know from the Netflix series Sex Education.
Speaker 2: You might know recently from the movie The Fall Guy
Speaker 2: with Emily Blunt and Ryan Goslin.
Speaker 1: You might be expecting to.
Speaker 2: See her in the upcoming mission Impossible. But I bet
Speaker 2: you know her from Ted Lasser. Everybody loves Hannah. Just
Speaker 2: so you know, she's hugged everybody. You know what it
Speaker 2: is spot, Yes, that is right. We were having lunch
Speaker 2: with Hannah Waddingham, who just completed season three, potentially the
Speaker 2: final season of had Lasso, but.
Speaker 4: There's word on the street that there might be.
Speaker 1: A season four.
Speaker 5: So pull up a chair, grab a glass of rose,
Speaker 5: and stay tuned. I'm Bruce Bozzi and this is my
Speaker 5: podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2: If you've tuned in today, we are at the Sunset Tower.
Speaker 2: We are having lunch at I think both of our
Speaker 2: favorite joints. We love this place.
Speaker 1: Thank you. The rose is here, Darling cheers. This is amazing,
Speaker 1: is the best.
Speaker 2: So you you know, we talked about Melody Kelly and
Speaker 2: she's your mom and she was an opera singer and
Speaker 2: your maternal grandparents.
Speaker 1: So it's sounds like the art and music and.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent I mean that the force is so
Speaker 3: unbelievably strong. On my mother's side, they were both my
Speaker 3: mum's parents were both opper singers at the Gaiety Theater
Speaker 3: in the Island Land, tiny little thirty miles long, eleven
Speaker 3: miles wide, little island between the mainland and Ireland, and
Speaker 3: they were a big deal bit. And my mom was
Speaker 3: this kind of maverick of choosing to leave. And she
Speaker 3: came over when she was eighteen, you know, the only
Speaker 3: daughter of only child brother of my grandparents. She came
Speaker 3: over to London and went to Trinity College of Music.
Speaker 6: And was this kind of just extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Everything that I've read about her past and talked to
Speaker 3: her about, she was unbelievably quiet, but unbelievably talented.
Speaker 6: And she then joined the roll of.
Speaker 3: Her house Coup of Garden, like literally after one little
Speaker 3: tour she was in My Fair Lady briefly on tour
Speaker 3: when she was like twenty and then bizarrely went from
Speaker 3: musical theater to opera, which is quite unusual. And if
Speaker 3: you think about it back in the day, you know
Speaker 3: that was like in the early sixties.
Speaker 6: She was suddenly this fabulous young Angene. And I find
Speaker 6: it so magical that she was at Covent Garden.
Speaker 3: Kind of mid to late sixties around Joan Sutherland.
Speaker 1: Very special time. Oh yeahredible time.
Speaker 2: How did the realization go from having the pipes to
Speaker 2: do musical theater to sing opera because it's very different.
Speaker 6: Yeah, very different. And my god, she always remind me
Speaker 6: of it. In fact, when I made my Broadway debut
Speaker 6: in spamal Art, my dad gave me.
Speaker 3: My dad gave me a massive squeeze on the second
Speaker 3: night and went much better than last night.
Speaker 6: And I thought, brilliant, love you, and my mom went,
Speaker 6: oh lah.
Speaker 3: Because the opera singers always sing slightly off their lext
Speaker 3: talk brother off their legs, so they don't actually speak
Speaker 3: down here. She would always talk like that, but she's
Speaker 3: slightly singing all the time.
Speaker 6: And she was literally like, there you go. You're finally
Speaker 6: singing properly. Thanks parents.
Speaker 3: This is why I don't have a giant ego because
Speaker 3: I have been dead to the ground.
Speaker 1: But it might be where you have one of the
Speaker 1: best senses of humor.
Speaker 2: I think there is Oh my god, that's hysterical slash brute.
Speaker 1: It's it's like the compliment with the zame.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I've been literally like I had already had
Speaker 3: a fifteen year leading lady career in the West End
Speaker 3: and then suddenly my mum comes out with this and
Speaker 3: I was like, wait, are you just gently trashing everything
Speaker 3: everything I've previously done.
Speaker 1: That you have done so much here? Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: It's my life blood. B really it is, yes, and
Speaker 3: everyone knows that. I mean I've been quite vocal about that.
Speaker 3: I do love the screen, but theater is inos.
Speaker 1: I mean it's rat and the accolades.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've been quite acknowledged by your peers and
Speaker 2: by you know, your of your work.
Speaker 1: What was did you have a favorite? Well? First of all,
Speaker 1: what was the first show you did in your.
Speaker 3: Western Well, the first one that anyone would know about
Speaker 3: more would be Androloid Webber's The Beautiful Game, which is
Speaker 3: about the troubles in Northern Ireland, which I'll come back to,
Speaker 3: But the.
Speaker 6: First one that people probably don't know.
Speaker 3: Was when I was twenty two, I was in a
Speaker 3: thing called Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens.
Speaker 1: Saucy Jack and the Space.
Speaker 6: Victim the most amazing rock score.
Speaker 3: It was fabulous, and I played a character called Chesty Prospects.
Speaker 6: It was camp. I mean there was there was fetish
Speaker 6: where it was great.
Speaker 3: I was a fetish plastic smuggler in it, as you do,
Speaker 3: and so I started off doing that and then I
Speaker 3: I kind of graduated up to the leading woman role
Speaker 3: who was called Jubilee Climax.
Speaker 1: Jubilee.
Speaker 2: I want that that could be the title of someone's
Speaker 2: Jubilee climax.
Speaker 6: I'm in the middle of a Jubilee climax.
Speaker 1: I mean that that could be your code name. And
Speaker 1: you're checking into your hotel.
Speaker 6: That's genius, my god.
Speaker 1: And then you'd have to look at the face of
Speaker 1: the person.
Speaker 3: Checking you and being like yeah, yeah, yes, say it,
Speaker 3: come on, say it.
Speaker 6: I dare you.
Speaker 2: So it was it kind of I mean weeds, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure it wasn't like this one after the other,
Speaker 2: just a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Like you were like, okay, I show opened to show close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I already had one. I already had one on
Speaker 3: the way. Yeah, I was extremely blessed. Yeah, extremely best
Speaker 3: and thankfully everything that I did in theater was a
Speaker 3: kind of pipe dream of mine realized and nothing that
Speaker 3: was like I made a deal with myself very early
Speaker 3: on for a sce, I don't I'm not hugely ambitious.
Speaker 6: I'd never had this huge plan at all.
Speaker 3: A very bohemian and kind of go with the flow
Speaker 3: and what's meant to come to me still now does.
Speaker 3: And there are things that I think, oh, I would
Speaker 3: have loved to have done that, and then my brain goes,
Speaker 3: but it's not for you. And I work on that
Speaker 3: basis all the time, and I did back then as well.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to do anything where I was like fifteenth, eighteenth,
Speaker 3: twentieth Fontein and Lamais. I thought I would rather create
Speaker 3: something that might falter, or I'd rather not do it.
Speaker 2: Whish you were clear, that's the best I think like that, Yeah.
Speaker 6: What was your kind of ethos? Things?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't Unfortunately I didn't have clarity.
Speaker 1: I kind of was going through the motions.
Speaker 7: Of everything, and uh, I look back, and you know,
Speaker 7: I'm at at that stage where I'm in my late
Speaker 7: fifties were like people say in midlife crisis, but hold on.
Speaker 6: Hold on one one second. What you are thet You're
Speaker 6: in your late fifties.
Speaker 1: Fifty eight, you are the hottest arch of sixties.
Speaker 6: I'm going to hold his head.
Speaker 3: Guys, if you haven't seen this man in pressure, he
Speaker 3: is the hottest fifty eight year old you've ever seen
Speaker 3: walking God's green Land.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for table for two, Karen,
Speaker 2: I will be going upstairs.
Speaker 1: What what the hell I mean? I don't know? I
Speaker 1: mean or you're younger than me, I don't Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say that.
Speaker 6: Carry on. I'm not going to interrupt you, but are
Speaker 6: you absolutely kidding me?
Speaker 2: I didn't have I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: I didn't I worked in the restaurant Posis for many,
Speaker 2: many years. That's a whole familial that was a whole
Speaker 2: family thing, like grandfather co founded.
Speaker 1: I worked thirty years, ninety four years in disastrous and
Speaker 1: but a beautiful journey. Yeah, like the families.
Speaker 2: And I think by having that, it just maybe I
Speaker 2: didn't have the sort of fire that I might have had,
Speaker 2: even though I kind of never wanted to be in
Speaker 2: that room.
Speaker 1: I went in that room. Really, I really didn't.
Speaker 6: Did you feel obliged?
Speaker 1: I felt my I mean, my parents like do what
Speaker 1: you want to do. I just I was good at it.
Speaker 1: And see that's the thing that Yeah.
Speaker 6: It came easy to you, easy both physically and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I didn't I look back going God like.
Speaker 1: What would what would happen? Because you weren't basically in
Speaker 1: your family business too, you know you were.
Speaker 6: That's why I find it interesting. It's the it being easy, right, it's.
Speaker 3: In your bones, your bones, It's like, and you don't
Speaker 3: you almost don't have time to go hold on.
Speaker 6: This is one hundred percent. Oh do you know what?
Speaker 6: I love it enough to go into it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 6: very That's what I was asking. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2: Do you feel just theater folk verse film and television film?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like the difference, I mean, like, is your vibe different?
Speaker 2: You like, you know, it's such a different Meetum, you
Speaker 2: know you're you're with theater people experience this live, you know, Cloie,
Speaker 2: you love theaterre Yeah, do.
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 3: I was listening to M's one Emily Blues and I
Speaker 3: said something, Oh, she and I fell in love with
Speaker 3: each other nasively.
Speaker 6: We're both you know, kind of London.
Speaker 3: Sorry girls, she she said something very interesting that I
Speaker 3: hadn't actually thought about. You are in such a concentrated
Speaker 3: spotlight when you do like we did Full Guy together,
Speaker 3: or like Ted last you, or you're in such a
Speaker 3: concentrated spotlight.
Speaker 6: There are I feel like.
Speaker 3: I've taken into my life, maybe one or two people
Speaker 3: from each job. And that's not intentional, but you kind
Speaker 3: of all fall in love with each other, but it
Speaker 3: becomes apparent quite quickly the ones that you'll check in
Speaker 3: with always down the line.
Speaker 6: You know. It's a funny old thing because theater, there's.
Speaker 3: The obvious daily muscularity of you all have to pull
Speaker 3: together when the curtain goes off at seven point thirty.
Speaker 3: Everyone follow spot front of house, everyone, the orchestra, you
Speaker 3: all have to be there and everything. The thing I
Speaker 3: love about it, everything in everyone's life has to be
Speaker 3: put to.
Speaker 6: One side in the wings, in the box, and you
Speaker 6: pick it up afterwards.
Speaker 3: You might be able to see it in someone's eyes
Speaker 3: and you give them a squeeze on stage and you're like,
Speaker 3: it's fine, it's fine, I'll come and see you.
Speaker 6: With the interval and you'll have a squeeze, you had
Speaker 6: a shitty day. You know, there's that, But in general,
Speaker 6: you will leave everything to one side.
Speaker 3: Whereas when you're on a film set particularly, it is
Speaker 3: a far more singular lifestyle and you have this kind
Speaker 3: of full on immersive.
Speaker 1: Experience and we need one.
Speaker 6: And then you leave.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And even though you are kind of in
Speaker 3: and out of each other's trailers, it's not the same
Speaker 3: as being backstage where you basically bed in. You know,
Speaker 3: you're like residents along with the mice, and there's far
Speaker 3: less higher army.
Speaker 6: Yeah that everyone knows. You've got to handle it like
Speaker 6: this otherwise you won't flush.
Speaker 3: But I love all of them. I love all of that,
Speaker 3: and I do miss it. But the thing I love
Speaker 3: about the film set is I was actually saying this
Speaker 3: more than ever on set with David leach m and Ryan.
Speaker 3: At one point I said, I love that we're all
Speaker 3: feeding off each other's wat ifs, because you're given far
Speaker 3: more of a carte blanche to explore each other, and
Speaker 3: you know, just add little bits in here in each
Speaker 3: of your what ifs, and then you act it on camera.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of singular people joining together in
Speaker 3: an explosive moment, whereas theater you are all like, you
Speaker 3: know your ropes, you know which one you're pulling, and
Speaker 3: you all pull together for a protracted period of time,
Speaker 3: you know. So just it's like getting on different animals
Speaker 3: and reminding yourself how that baby works.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 2: Our guest, Hannah Waddingham has had an incredibly wide way acting.
Speaker 8: Career, both in film and television and on stage, and
Speaker 8: she has played so many incredible characters, from the Wicked
Speaker 8: Witch of the West to Rebecca Welton and Ted Lasso.
Speaker 4: I'm curious how does she choose her roles.
Speaker 3: I like characters who I have to find something to love.
Speaker 6: I used to get quite.
Speaker 3: Offended that people would say that Rebecca Wilton is like
Speaker 3: the darl Vader of the thing.
Speaker 6: I was like, well, she's been massively wronged. What's your problem. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's interesting.
Speaker 3: And I mean maybe it's the gentle mind of a
Speaker 3: serial killer, that whole thing of like, oh no, but
Speaker 3: you've got to find the love for them and the
Speaker 3: love for that character, like that's on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, because you're a person in wild Yeah.
Speaker 6: I just signed off on something this morning which will
Speaker 6: be exciting.
Speaker 3: It a movie that I'm doing, And I basically sat
Speaker 3: down with the director and said, I really love the
Speaker 3: idea of working with you and the people that you're
Speaker 3: trying to assemble, but I I basically want to play
Speaker 3: this in the script because.
Speaker 6: It was too obvious. It was too you know, kind
Speaker 6: of curvy.
Speaker 3: Blondie busty, and so I've said I'm in if we
Speaker 3: can turn it on its head.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you bring up something that was on my mind,
Speaker 2: which is the objectification in like in being objectified.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're.
Speaker 2: Very beautiful, your everything that sort of classically gets objectified
Speaker 2: and hardy. Yeah, and recently you called journalist out for
Speaker 2: sort of and I think justifiably. So when I was
Speaker 2: watching E whatever the hell I was watching, and I
Speaker 2: was like, good for you, Hannah, I'm like, like.
Speaker 1: Hey, would you would you ask a guy like you know,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah?
Speaker 6: And it was disappointing because I've known him for twenty years.
Speaker 1: That's really disappointing. Really.
Speaker 6: That's why I was so disappointed because we've always had
Speaker 6: such a mutually.
Speaker 3: Beneficial relationship, always respectful, and I think I supp you know,
Speaker 3: to his credit. He emailed me afterwards and we got
Speaker 3: into it a bit, and I said, what on earth
Speaker 3: were you thinking? Not only had I been photographed, I
Speaker 3: was just about to host the whole of the Olivias.
Speaker 6: And I just had to perform. What on earth are
Speaker 6: you doing? You're better than that?
Speaker 3: And he just said, forgive me. I was over familiar
Speaker 3: for seconds, so I took it. But I did say
Speaker 3: to him, make no mistake, you cannot and must not
Speaker 3: ever man or woman, speak to anybody like that ever again.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't kind of actually what he said. It
Speaker 3: was his mannerism. He kind of went, I.
Speaker 1: Couldn't see that.
Speaker 3: No nobody saw that. That is an exclusive, my friend.
Speaker 3: But that made me go from nought to absolutely mental.
Speaker 3: And I'm actually quite absolutely let you.
Speaker 2: Get away with them?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no no, And I'm nipping it in the
Speaker 3: bug because my daughter will be watching this.
Speaker 6: And I can't. I can't have it. I can't have it.
Speaker 3: It's just And then what actually surprised me more than anything,
Speaker 3: because I get it that he's trying to get his
Speaker 3: shot and he forgot himself for a moment.
Speaker 6: What I don't understand is the amount of unbelievably acidic
Speaker 6: comments I got online.
Speaker 3: From women, from women saying, oh you love the spotlight,
Speaker 3: you love it if you had a split in your skirt. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: it was a custom made, beautiful Marquesa gown where I'd
Speaker 3: very carefully said, let's have it mid thy and no
Speaker 3: further up. Beautiful, diaphanous, stunning gown made me by beautiful seamstresses.
Speaker 3: And to have people women women, Yeah, bad show man,
Speaker 3: and I'm such a girl's girl.
Speaker 6: That's what upset me. Yeah, I can deal with the
Speaker 6: photographer me and I fine.
Speaker 2: But that it's interesting that kind of goes in line
Speaker 2: with when people say, and I might be stretching in
Speaker 2: a little bit, when something.
Speaker 1: Happens to somebody, you get whistle that you get it.
Speaker 1: Oh well you deserved it because it was what you
Speaker 1: were worried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you get and that's no, no, no, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 2: whiffs of the accused, right exactly? If I have whiffs
Speaker 2: of the accused, do you have you come across that
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: In your career?
Speaker 6: No, barre not No.
Speaker 3: I think I am constantly told that most men are
Speaker 3: scared of me. Why, I mean, I might, I mean
Speaker 3: it's such a silly egg you are.
Speaker 1: I don't get it. Are you in a relationship work now?
Speaker 6: I'm not.
Speaker 1: You need to sort that out.
Speaker 3: There's something that is a complete mystery to me. I
Speaker 3: am almost perpetually single and very broed of it.
Speaker 6: It just turn fifty and I'm not down with.
Speaker 5: Any Yes, look at you, well, look at you.
Speaker 6: He's being nice.
Speaker 1: Excuse me. It was fifty. Turning fifty in any way
Speaker 1: hard or no. I love it. I don't mind it.
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 3: I think I've been so blessed by the arrival of
Speaker 3: my daughter into my life, and I know so many
Speaker 3: dear friends who haven't been able to have that.
Speaker 6: And I've also lost, either through illness or through not
Speaker 6: being able to.
Speaker 3: Cope with their world anymore, a lot of people that
Speaker 3: haven't made it to fifty.
Speaker 6: Wow. Right, So I went away on a trip and
Speaker 6: took my nearest and dearest with me, and on my.
Speaker 3: Fiftieth birthday, I said that to all of them, you know,
Speaker 3: the little group we had, that I'm so blessed.
Speaker 6: To have all of them.
Speaker 3: And I did get quite sad about the people I
Speaker 3: know who haven't made it to fifty. And you know,
Speaker 3: especially in this industry that can be so brutal. They've
Speaker 3: all been in this industry. I did raise a glass
Speaker 3: to them, and I didn't want to be morose on
Speaker 3: that day. But you do kind of reflect a lot,
Speaker 3: don't you, around your fiftiethly So I had an amazing
Speaker 3: day with my little girl, who turned ten five days previously,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's just me and her.
Speaker 6: We are a total little team. And I was totally
Speaker 6: cool it.
Speaker 3: I love that I'm exactly ten years sorry that I'm
Speaker 3: exactly forty years older than her, and we'll always have
Speaker 3: those stepping stones.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was sitting there at the dressing table and when
Speaker 3: I was thirty eight and literally thought, oh my.
Speaker 6: God, I've forgotten to have a child.
Speaker 3: Just suddenly, Yes, it's like my Obrey's when hello. And
Speaker 3: it felt like, you know, like in Moontielhood. It felt
Speaker 3: like I grabbed the last egg from underneath the door
Speaker 3: that was coming down, like his hat.
Speaker 6: I really didn't.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's that's the girl.
Speaker 6: I really really did.
Speaker 1: You played? Yeah, I mean you gorgeous.
Speaker 6: Well my mom kept saying yeah, and prosthetic nose and chin.
Speaker 3: My mom had always said, why do you why do
Speaker 3: you always covered up what you look like, why can't
Speaker 3: you just be you?
Speaker 6: And I'm like, because I don't need to be me.
Speaker 6: I'm me in life, I don't need to be me.
Speaker 3: In my work. And she's like, but why why do
Speaker 3: you Why don't you let people in my twenties and thirties,
Speaker 3: why don't you let people see how lovely you are?
Speaker 3: And I was like, because it's not fun. I love
Speaker 3: the fact that I was unrecognizable in a lot of
Speaker 3: my theater career, you know, like Into the Woods as
Speaker 3: well when they made when they sent me to get
Speaker 3: my prosthetic face done, I was like, I wanted to
Speaker 3: look like my skin is feeling off, like I've got
Speaker 3: like melted like a candle.
Speaker 6: And with the Wizard of Oz, I.
Speaker 3: Wanted to look exactly like because I was interested in
Speaker 3: Miss Gulch more than the than the Witch.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because she is the real person. She's the germ
Speaker 6: that Dorothy's terrified of, and the anything after that. I mean,
Speaker 6: I know it's the majority of the she know the
Speaker 6: majority of the film, but anything after that is Dorothy's nightmare.
Speaker 6: It's not the real person. So I wanted to look
Speaker 6: like Margaret Hamilton as the person.
Speaker 3: So when I came cycling on my bike, and I
Speaker 3: gotten to make me a bike so that I could
Speaker 3: have my back poker straight cycling from stage right to stage.
Speaker 6: Left, going a little children across the front of the stage.
Speaker 6: I wanted to look the dead spit of Margaret Hamilton.
Speaker 6: So my prosthetics were completely.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it, since the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: is really her dream. What is the inner life?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 6: It has to come from the jam what has been
Speaker 6: her wounds and looe in her.
Speaker 3: So that goes back to the thing I say about
Speaker 3: I love a character because of how they've been wronged.
Speaker 6: She just doesn't want Dorothy to come in her garden
Speaker 6: with that pesky dog, with that pesky dog, that dirty
Speaker 6: dog out of my garden, young lady. You know that's
Speaker 6: what it comes from.
Speaker 3: So they even said to me, or we could have
Speaker 3: your your understudy play miss Guild so that you can
Speaker 3: be greening, and I was like, absolutely not, because it
Speaker 3: has to come from Dorothy's terror of this woman who
Speaker 3: is unyielding and unswerving.
Speaker 6: And then that's like a scene of one minute in
Speaker 6: thirty six seconds.
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 2: So that whole transition then to become the transition is fast, yeah,
Speaker 2: fast and furious, and especially on a two show day
Speaker 2: when you have to get all the green off.
Speaker 6: Right to go and play that germ of a woman
Speaker 6: for one minute thirty six back then.
Speaker 1: But you can see, you can feel, and I can
Speaker 1: hear the importance of.
Speaker 2: That to be in that it's all moment because without
Speaker 2: experiencing that in the show, the other piece, you're missing that.
Speaker 6: Yes, I get it exactly.
Speaker 3: And I think they thought I was insane that I
Speaker 3: that I wanted to play both parts, and they were like,
Speaker 3: but no one's ever going to know, because there's prosthetics.
Speaker 6: And I was like, i'll know, I'll know.
Speaker 3: I don't care if I'm the last person to leave,
Speaker 3: which I was every night, the last person to leave.
Speaker 6: Running for my train. And I try and tell my
Speaker 6: daughter this now she goes, oh, Mommy, I want to
Speaker 6: be like you.
Speaker 3: I want to do I want to do this, and
Speaker 3: then I want to go into screenwork and that, and
Speaker 3: I always say, my girl, you see Mammy going on
Speaker 3: in a strampsy Mercedes. But for twenty five years I
Speaker 3: was on stage wondering if I'd make my last train,
Speaker 3: and how was I going to afford.
Speaker 6: To get back in a car if I if I'm
Speaker 6: miss that's my last strength.
Speaker 4: Yeah, welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 8: Although Hannah is now part of an acclaimed television show
Speaker 8: and is quickly becoming a fixture on the silver screen,
Speaker 8: it all comes back to her earlier career in theater.
Speaker 4: I'd love to know what she holds DearS from her
Speaker 4: time on stage, just.
Speaker 2: To sort of name, I mean, the Olivia Woard, the
Speaker 2: International Film Festival, the Sad Critics Choice, Hollywood Critics Sturres.
Speaker 1: You know people have watched you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I'm talking it's like fifteen there's
Speaker 2: a million nominations or wins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I not that that is what it's about.
Speaker 1: But it's important, I think sometimes to know that you're
Speaker 1: being acknowledged for your war. Yes, from your peers and from.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it really is. And you you can't get caught
Speaker 6: up with that.
Speaker 3: But when you know what's gone into getting you there's
Speaker 3: It's why I stood up and an accidentally the words
Speaker 3: that fell out of my mouth in my Amy acceptance
Speaker 3: speech when I just said, please give theater people a chance,
Speaker 3: because we won't let you down.
Speaker 6: It's true even now I could get a motion about.
Speaker 3: It because being overlooked for so long, people going, oh,
Speaker 3: but you you do this singing thing. People have no
Speaker 3: idea that people in theater don't get into it for
Speaker 3: fame or money. They love playing characters. They love you know,
Speaker 3: like I always say to myself, fleshing out the bag,
Speaker 3: like every single corner, can you can you? Can you
Speaker 3: flesh out that character anymore?
Speaker 1: Can you?
Speaker 3: Is there is there a bit of where where the
Speaker 3: bag is deflating, you flesh that out with some part
Speaker 3: of something for that character.
Speaker 6: Theater people do that, and I just it.
Speaker 3: Just fell out of my face to say it in
Speaker 3: that moment that you get more theater people must be
Speaker 3: seen on screen because they're just so.
Speaker 6: In love with character. And like you're saying, it's relationships
Speaker 6: and theater people love relationships. They love just nudging anything
Speaker 6: you can eke.
Speaker 3: Out of it.
Speaker 2: So I mean it sounds like I mean, and I'm
Speaker 2: just going to talk about it, but you have like
Speaker 2: you're very physical in your work, and that seems like
Speaker 2: it's something that you enjoy, like, you know, using your body.
Speaker 6: It's no separation.
Speaker 1: Prop and it shows you know.
Speaker 2: And we also talked about which I love the sort
Speaker 2: of playing the boss like villain's but it's a surprise
Speaker 2: when did you go?
Speaker 1: Okay, the transitions start to happen from the theater world
Speaker 1: into the You know, I was a big fan of
Speaker 1: sex education and lasso you You've done a number of
Speaker 1: Why did that?
Speaker 6: I I kind of yeah, it wasn't a curve, to
Speaker 6: be honest, not for me anyway.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 3: I the last theater show I did, I was Lily
Speaker 3: Vanessa and because we got at the Old VIC which
Speaker 3: I loved, I love, I love it.
Speaker 6: But I knew that I had wanted a I had
Speaker 6: wanted to spread my wings and just dip my toe
Speaker 6: a lot earlier than I was being allowed to. Like
Speaker 6: I say, I had that constant thing for I suppose
Speaker 6: I did like ten years straight in theater and then
Speaker 6: I started the toe dipping. But the dips weren't being
Speaker 6: accepted because they.
Speaker 3: Were like, well, you're a theater girl, and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just an actor and a singer.
Speaker 6: Why are you doing that?
Speaker 3: And the worst thing was, at the time my agents
Speaker 3: were doing and I had a meeting with them and
Speaker 3: they went, well, but what do you want to promote
Speaker 3: you as this or that, and I was like, what
Speaker 3: if we're having this conversation with one hundred percent done,
Speaker 3: don't limit me or you like that.
Speaker 6: So I started doing bits and pieces of television, and then.
Speaker 3: It got to the point where I was just like,
Speaker 3: I'm sick and tired of always feeding into someone else's narrative.
Speaker 6: I'm sick and tired of being grateful as a theater
Speaker 6: girl getting one scene in this and one scene in that.
Speaker 6: I know they're going to get you to do this,
Speaker 6: and they're going to know.
Speaker 3: So I said, I went completely cold turkey, and I
Speaker 3: said to my team at the time, thank you, darling.
Speaker 6: She's so pretty that pleas of brose. Look at it
Speaker 6: sitting there all bless you, sir, thank you lovely quick
Speaker 6: Ding quick Ding critic. Of course, I can't drink if
Speaker 6: we haven't clams.
Speaker 3: So I said to my dream I'm not doing these
Speaker 3: one scenes anymore. And they at the time that set
Speaker 3: of agents. And I'm saying this on purpose so that
Speaker 3: anyone listening who's an actor and feels limited by their agents,
Speaker 3: we forget that we also have a massive voice in that.
Speaker 6: And they do work for you.
Speaker 3: And when you find great ones like I have now.
Speaker 3: It is a complete and utter marriage. But coming up
Speaker 3: through the ranks too much, and I know friends that
Speaker 3: felt the same. You feel beholden to the opinion of
Speaker 3: your agents and just grateful for whatever you get. At
Speaker 3: some point that has to fucking stop, you know, and
Speaker 3: you have to know your worth. And there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 3: This is something I've learned from coming to America. There
Speaker 3: is a big difference between arrogance and knowing your worth.
Speaker 3: And in Britain, I think often people aren't encouraged to
Speaker 3: know their own worth, you know. And so I said
Speaker 3: to them, I'm not doing those anymore. And they went, well,
Speaker 3: you probably won't get any screamwork them because you're not
Speaker 3: as known. I was like, I'm not as known because
Speaker 3: I'm not doing enough on screen. It's like chicken in
Speaker 3: the egg. So I went cold turkey.
Speaker 1: And then I.
Speaker 3: Darren Litton, who is the writer of benadorma It Too
Speaker 3: Big ITV comedy series, basically said to I TV, I
Speaker 3: want her for this part. They said, oh, she's not
Speaker 3: known on TV, and he was like, we'll make her known.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I was doing theater at the time, and so
Speaker 6: I really.
Speaker 3: Thank him for that because it was a bit of
Speaker 3: a calling card for me and it and it helped
Speaker 3: me kind of hone that different muscle on screen. And
Speaker 3: then after that, I fell pregnant with my daughter. And
Speaker 3: the next thing, the next audition after that was a
Speaker 3: little known sow called Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1: And come on now, and it's so interesting. So like
Speaker 1: someone's first, I need your is to keep you in
Speaker 1: the box. Yeah, no, no, no, no, she's not known
Speaker 1: on TV.
Speaker 3: So now, yeah, she's too big, she's she's too big,
Speaker 3: she's too facial expressions, favorite expressions are hYP too big.
Speaker 6: And I've talked about it quite a lot.
Speaker 3: At drama school in a screenwork lesson to the teacher
Speaker 3: who shall remain nameless, otherwise I feel like the hounds
Speaker 3: will set upon her. Said, you see, Hannah will never
Speaker 3: work in on screen because one side of her face
Speaker 3: looks like she's had a stroke.
Speaker 6: What So for years I didn't even audition for anything.
Speaker 2: That's horrible and me and not it's just horrible and
Speaker 2: nasal effect from yeah, well that could start a young
Speaker 2: person or anybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I didn't order for anything on screen for several years. Wow,
Speaker 6: she says, drinking a large gold pat.
Speaker 1: It's just devastating, Like that's devastating.
Speaker 6: And also sucute.
Speaker 1: Guess who's having the last last? We're all work more
Speaker 1: than did you realize? Oh, I'm in the m I'm
Speaker 1: in the room.
Speaker 6: Because I love the fact that the character is almost mute,
Speaker 6: and even.
Speaker 3: When you do speak, it's almost non stella. And I
Speaker 3: fed off that and in my head I just went
Speaker 3: you wept because this is a tiny, tiny part, but
Speaker 3: I've got this and I loved it.
Speaker 6: I love that part. I love the fact that.
Speaker 9: I'm scrubbed, no finery, no juicy, lovely golden beauty lamps,
Speaker 9: stripped bear, and I honestly.
Speaker 6: I wish I could have made that longer because.
Speaker 3: It's so different from who I am, how rhythms and
Speaker 3: vibrations so different from me. And I loved it and
Speaker 3: I'm crave playing something like that again. Completely stripped back, pause,
Speaker 3: every pore of you on show.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 6: So I have no vanity on screen at all, It's
Speaker 6: amazing if it requires it. Obviously, we all want.
Speaker 3: To look nice, and as you get older, you're like
Speaker 3: you're going up to the DP and you're like, give
Speaker 3: it lives.
Speaker 6: But if it's a part that requires it. I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: do more.
Speaker 3: Put the light above my head so that you see
Speaker 3: every single bag I've got, because she's been you know,
Speaker 3: flagellating in the cell.
Speaker 6: And secretly fancies the high Sparrow.
Speaker 1: That's wild and then of course on last so you're
Speaker 1: glamor she is.
Speaker 3: But I used to love the bits like I had
Speaker 3: quite a if you won't my me saying my hair
Speaker 3: and makeup on is from the ante Lasso. There's a
Speaker 3: bit when I'm lying in bed with Tahim's character Sam Abusanye,
Speaker 3: and I was like, no, it's they're waking up together.
Speaker 6: I don't want any makeup on in real life. Well no, no, no,
Speaker 6: you need to.
Speaker 3: It needs to be like the no makeup makeup And
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I don't know. I don't want anything.
Speaker 3: And it kind of went up to the powers that be.
Speaker 3: They were like, hand I the one to wear any
Speaker 3: magar because I want her to be approachable and I
Speaker 3: want her to be somebody that I know that everyone
Speaker 3: was rooting for.
Speaker 6: Rebecca Wilton and I take up very seriously, and I thought,
Speaker 6: I just want everyone to see her. It's like I said,
Speaker 6: like pause, and all walks in all.
Speaker 3: And that's why I like every character, because your vulnerability
Speaker 3: is so close to your greater strength.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, when you do see that, people
Speaker 2: wake up in bed and the lammed out. You as
Speaker 2: an audience, you will switch out to switch off. You're like,
Speaker 2: you't wave stuff like that.
Speaker 3: It's something so much more sexy hot about the fact
Speaker 3: that she's clearly like, wait, I had a great night, right.
Speaker 6: You know it's not it's and I love that I'm
Speaker 6: like that And that does come from theater as well,
Speaker 6: do you.
Speaker 1: So, what were your thoughts going into well, the last season,
Speaker 1: because maybe there'll be a season four. It's sort of
Speaker 1: being rumor that there's a season for all. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You keep drinking Rose Tony, we need the bottle.
Speaker 6: I don't know. All I do know is that Rebecca
Speaker 6: Welton has gone nowhere out of my heart.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you that was so that last
Speaker 1: moment with you and the last show was very emotional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then when you look down and you see
Speaker 2: the little girl and you look up, it's all about love.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden you realize, oh, this show is
Speaker 1: about love, It's about connection. It's about the guys discovering each.
Speaker 6: Other, about seeing each other. Everyone's see see each other's phone.
Speaker 6: It's really when you look up at the hot touch,
Speaker 6: I mean hello, thank you?
Speaker 1: Yes, I know. I mean I'm like, oh, so distracted,
Speaker 1: this is going to happen.
Speaker 6: How you can tell him read hot? That's so hard,
Speaker 6: I mean sprung, so.
Speaker 1: I've read.
Speaker 6: I love that. You just made yourself.
Speaker 1: A little girl handing up. I know, I know him
Speaker 1: is like great, do you.
Speaker 2: So this is potentially contingent on the American actors like that,
Speaker 2: the British actors, the contracts.
Speaker 1: Like there's a possibility that could be a four.
Speaker 6: Think it's a possibility. I've been reading in the press
Speaker 6: as much as anyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, John, I mean, life is short, Ted last.
Speaker 6: People who knows. All I know is that writer's read
Speaker 6: were a writer's room of champions, magnificent.
Speaker 1: Writers could.
Speaker 6: And it spoils you for all other work because.
Speaker 3: Now, and I'm really glad about it. Actually now, unless
Speaker 3: unless I receive a script that pushes and pulls me as.
Speaker 6: Much as Ted did.
Speaker 3: I mean, you could be in one scene and almost
Speaker 3: with one sentence full of people's heart strings and then
Speaker 3: had them laughing, like smack them around the face with
Speaker 3: a gag.
Speaker 6: And I've never known anything like it.
Speaker 3: And the beauty of that writer's room was it was full,
Speaker 3: jam packed full of the male feminists interesting and you
Speaker 3: can see it in the writing all over the place
Speaker 3: and the people that they pulled together.
Speaker 6: If you think about it, myself.
Speaker 3: And Juno as the main female players in it, we
Speaker 3: never once felt dominated by all our men folk. It
Speaker 3: was the most beautiful.
Speaker 6: Five years of my work in life.
Speaker 2: Really see that with the chure, their voice, their strange Yeah, five.
Speaker 6: Years total and utter never ended.
Speaker 4: Bliss.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I why I always have the
Speaker 3: dream I have in this in this hotel. They know
Speaker 3: I'm like a homing pigeon for my same suite because
Speaker 3: it's where Oh my god, my brain's just farted. That's
Speaker 3: the rose Iggy.
Speaker 6: How can I forget his name? He tried several times
Speaker 6: to leap out of the window when he was stone
Speaker 6: out of his mind and the ambulments had to be called.
Speaker 1: And it's a total sexy rack.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he tried to dive into the floor.
Speaker 1: He wanted to dive into this try.
Speaker 6: It was trying to that. It was like like you know,
Speaker 6: because it was a little bit in a mind altered state.
Speaker 6: He was just trying out and they had to call that, Yeah,
Speaker 6: what is.
Speaker 1: A movie that influenced you? Or actress?
Speaker 6: Or Carol Burnett?
Speaker 3: Annie, And I've been quite vocal about it because last
Speaker 3: last Emmy's I met her and literally my legs went
Speaker 3: and it was amazing because as she kind of scooped
Speaker 3: me up on the floor, she told me she was
Speaker 3: a fan of my work, and I just thought, what
Speaker 3: the hell? So the triumvirate of Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters
Speaker 3: and Tim Curry doing Easy Street, that magnificent number, which
Speaker 3: I heard later from Tim they ended up choreographing and
Speaker 3: directing themselves really, which.
Speaker 6: Adds to it for me knowing that from him. Two
Speaker 6: have you know, worked with Tim Curri and spam a
Speaker 6: lot to have had that with Carol. And then I
Speaker 6: tried to get.
Speaker 3: And Adebt to sing with me on my Chroyston special
Speaker 3: and she couldn't make it, but she sent me the
Speaker 3: most beautiful email saying we need to we need to
Speaker 3: circle back to each other, those three people who'd had
Speaker 3: such a massive effect on me, that whole thing of
Speaker 3: like doing everything like you said about being muscular and
Speaker 3: using your body. I never see any divide, even in
Speaker 3: the Fall Guy.
Speaker 6: If they had said this is not gonna be.
Speaker 3: A musical number, I can find a way to get
Speaker 3: through to that and back and even ted, you know,
Speaker 3: because there is so much music in life all the
Speaker 3: time anyway.
Speaker 6: And rhythm and all of it. So I've never really understood.
Speaker 3: The whole thing of oh it's just a play, or
Speaker 3: oh it's a film without music, or oh it's a musical,
Speaker 3: or I don't I feel like.
Speaker 6: It should all bleed in and you should just have
Speaker 6: the tools ready.
Speaker 1: Mission and Bossable, it's coming our way, sir. What's so?
Speaker 6: I went out in Australia, in the middle of street
Speaker 6: in Corway.
Speaker 3: I got a phone call from my agent saying, are
Speaker 3: you okay with literally coming home to London and packing
Speaker 3: the case and getting on a flight to be a mission?
Speaker 6: And I went, what's mission? Thinking it was a movie
Speaker 6: or a TV series called Mission? And he went, knows
Speaker 6: Mission impossible? And I of course went and he said, no,
Speaker 6: we'd like to set up a call with you and
Speaker 6: Christmas Quarry.
Speaker 3: Now, you know, people hear me talk wax lyrical about
Speaker 3: the kind thoughtful soul that is Tom Cruise.
Speaker 6: Let me talk about Christmas Quarry.
Speaker 3: That man wrote the usual suspects of people, the greatest
Speaker 3: twists great. So he and I got on a zoom
Speaker 3: and I think Chris realized very quickly that I'm a
Speaker 3: total geek, Like you're a hot weirdo, I'm an absolute geek.
Speaker 6: I'm a geek. And then some so I turn up.
Speaker 3: I meet him and Tom on the runway in Bari
Speaker 3: getting onto an osprey.
Speaker 6: To be taken.
Speaker 3: We could only have like all of us, including Miss
Speaker 3: t all of us had to have like the bare
Speaker 3: minimum stuff because of us and a skeleton crew.
Speaker 6: Were going onto the George W.
Speaker 3: Bush Fighter camera being allowed on for five days with
Speaker 3: four and a half thousand serving naval men and women
Speaker 3: on the ship working us getting in their way, and
Speaker 3: day and night, I was up on the deck with
Speaker 3: my high vis jacket and my defenders on my hard hat,
Speaker 3: filming all of the FA teens taking off and landing
Speaker 3: day and night, to the point where I think I
Speaker 3: probably I feel like I had like four hours sleep
Speaker 3: for five days just and Chris was just like, we
Speaker 3: had no idea, You're such a geek.
Speaker 6: I was so heavily into it.
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm allowed to say what I play,
Speaker 3: but anyone that knows me will think it's hilarious.
Speaker 6: When I played, because she's really high.
Speaker 3: Powered and importance, and if I was actually playing that
Speaker 3: part in real life, they'd be absolutely chaos.
Speaker 1: The Christmas the movie.
Speaker 6: No, I think we will do. I think we're doing
Speaker 6: the press junket. I'm going to try and be kind
Speaker 6: of the press junket in May.
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, I think that the road the
Speaker 1: next chapter, it was a big chapter. I find it's
Speaker 1: a big chapter for you, I hope. So it's a
Speaker 1: big chapter. You've earned it, You've worked at your.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I really have. I really have worked for it.
Speaker 3: And it's really lovely that I'm just about to spend
Speaker 3: the next five months with Lady miss Oh out in
Speaker 3: Prague shooting our new series together.
Speaker 6: And it's lovely to be in awe of her, but.
Speaker 3: To feel like I've earned standing shoulder to shoulder, it's
Speaker 3: not some nice feelings.
Speaker 1: Of your.
Speaker 4: Enjoy everybody.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining.
Speaker 6: One second. One second, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: For pulling up a chair.
Speaker 5: I love our launches, and never forget the romance of
Speaker 5: a Meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
Speaker 5: friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
Speaker 5: for two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
Speaker 5: three seven Part and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Speaker 5: Bosi Nathan King. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Our
Speaker 5: editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas B Bias. Table
Speaker 5: for two is researched and written by Maax Sullivan. Our
Speaker 5: sound engineers are Meil B. Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor,
Speaker 5: and Jesse fun Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our
Speaker 5: talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin. Table for two
Speaker 5: Social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special thanks to Amy Sugarman,
Speaker 5: Uni Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter Graber. For
Speaker 5: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 5: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.