Hannah Waddingham Reveals Her Drama Teacher Insulted Her Appearance & Said She Would ‘Never Work on Screen’

Hannah Waddingham is opening up about the time an acting teacher bullied her.

The Ted Lasso star appeared on Michelle Visage‘s BBC podcast, Rule Breakers, to discuss the defining moment in her life and career.

The teacher made a very brutal comment about her face and told Hannah that she didn’t have a future in TV or film.

“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,’” the actress recalled on the podcast.

Although those words gave her a “complex for years,” Hannah was even more determined to make it in the industry after that. “I thought, ‘I will do. Come hell or high water, I will work on-screen,’” she remembered.

When she ultimately won the 2021 Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her performance in Ted Lasso, she used that memory to inform 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 theater people, or theater people, to follow,” she said.

During Hannah‘s speech, she shouted out British musical theater actors like herself, urging, “West End musical performers need to be on screen more. Please give them a chance cause we won’t let you down.”

She recently explained why she’ll always defend her Mission: Impossible 8 costar, Tom Cruise.