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Hannah Waddingham has had a truly stunning career. The English actress has starred on the silver screen and in hit TV shows, and she has dominated the stage, making her mark on both Broadway and West End. As if her laundry list of roles wasn’t enough, she also has an Emmy and a Critic’s Choice TV Award to her name.
But Waddingham recently revealed what she is most proud of, and it’s not what you might think. It’s not snagging those awards for playing Rebecca Welton on Ted Lasso. No. It’s an incredibly intimate moment she had while filming her upcoming Christmas special, Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas.
At a press conference, Waddingham tells SheKnows her favorite thing was singing “O Holy Night” to her 8-year-old daughter Kitty and her mom — Melodie Kelly, a longtime member of the English National Opera. The timing, she said, was “unbelievable.”
“The fact that my daughter was 8 when we shot this and was sitting in the [theater] box where I sat from the age of 8 is kind of weird. She was 8 sitting there and observing with her little spirit and her little heart seeing her mommy standing there when I had sat there and seen my mommy.”
Meanwhile, Waddingham’s mom — who is “heavily inflicted” with Parkinson’s disease — watched from the stalls. The musical theater icon said it was a “big deal” to get her mom there along with her dad who had quintuple heart surgery while she was shooting Season 3 of Ted Lasso.
“To have them both there and to have my daughter,” Waddingham started, “If I never did anything again, this special would be my greatest achievement.”
Cue the waterworks! That’s one of the most moving things we’ve ever heard, and while it may sound dramatic, we’re not lying when we say we get goosebumps every time we read it.
This year, Waddingham was named GLAMOUR’s Women of the Year Awards 2023 Entertainer Honoree and got candid about her decision to become a single mother in her 40s. She said she wanted to have a child on her own timeline so she wouldn’t resent that child for taking her away from her career.
“I wanted the privilege of motherhood to work in tandem with my career, rather than me thinking, ‘God, you’re stopping me doing things…’ Because the greatest gift in the world is a child and they are complete, beautiful, green innocents,” she said.
“Being a single mother in your forties is not easy! I’m not going to lie, it’s quite exhausting. One of the greatest acting jobs in my life is pretending I have energy for my daughter! Honestly, when she says to me, ‘Oh, let’s do this or let’s do that, Mumma,’ my whole body goes, ‘Oh my God, really?’”
Some days, she admitted, she feels like an “absolutely rubbish mother” who is prone to the classic mom guilt that most working mothers feel.
“But I’m learning to feel pride in my work and that can only be a positive thing to teach my daughter — just as I saw my mother working, my daughter now sees me, and so it continues,” she said.
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