The 'Ted Lasso' actress struggled to fit in when she was at school because she was much taller than her peers and often found herself being ridiculed due to her stature.
- Dec 14, 2023
AceShowbiz - Hannah Waddingham was harassed and mocked at school because of her height. The 49-year-old actress stands at 5ft 11in and explained that because she was always noticeably taller than her classmates when growing up, she would always be bullied.
"I was properly bullied. I got it terrible. I was quite shy, we're called introverted extroverts that's what it is. They used to tease me about my height when they were much much smaller but...in your face...look at me now!" she said on "The Kelly Clarkson Show".
Prior finding global fame on "Game of Thrones" and "Ted Lasso", Hannah - who has nine-year-old Kitty from a previous relationship - starred in West End musicals like "Into the Woods" and "The Wizard of Oz" and is now returning to her roots in her Apple+ special "Home for Christmas" where she ended up getting "emotional" as she performed a host of festive classics at the London Coliseum.
She said, "My mum was a mezzo-soprano opera singer at the London Coliseum for 30 years. I know that building...from being a little kid at the age of eight until she retired when I was 38. I used to run around that building talking to the restroom attendants and the canteen staff."
"It was amazing to be back there and for one of the songs I do, 'O Holy Night', the International Opera heard I was going to be there for a special and they offered to come to sing with me. Some of them are still there who were there when my mum was there so that was pretty emotional."
Hannah added that history repeated itself when she put her own daughter in the box she used to sit in as a little girl herself and recalled worrying that she would "struggle" to sing during the "poignant" moment that she performed to her parents.
"I was there from the age of eight and I put my little girl - who was eight when we shot it in May - in the same box that I used to always sit in. Box as in theatrical box, not like, a box! So, she was there, my mum as there and I dedicated the song to the two women in my life."
"My beloved ma is heavily inflicted with Parkinson's now and in a wheelchair and I didn't know if her or my dad were going to be there at all, or even be alive. So it was a really special, poignant moment and I actually thought I was going to struggle to sing but it came out okay."
