LEILA FADEL, HOST:
When I sat down with the actor Hannah Waddingham, she was loving life. Her shows, "Ted Lasso" and "Ride Or Die," are dominating on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.
HANNAH WADDINGHAM: No. 1, my friend. No. 1.
FADEL: It's a moment.
WADDINGHAM: On both platforms. Let's just call it as it is.
FADEL: (Laughter) It's awesome. Congratulations.
WADDINGHAM: I'd like to think it's all me. It's absolutely not. But I'm going to dine out on it, even if it lasts for one day.
FADEL: In "Ride Or Die," she's a bombshell secret assassin who has to go on the run with her bestie. In "Ted Lasso," she's Rebecca Welton, an imposing English soccer club owner, figuring out who she is post-divorce. She hires an American football coach who knows nothing about soccer - also football in the U.K. - hoping he will be a disaster for the AFC Richmond team, which was her ex-husband's prized possession. But she ends up loving the sport and the coach, Ted Lasso, played by Jason Sudeikis. When Season 4 begins, Rebecca is in Kansas City asking Ted to come back to England.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TED LASSO")
WADDINGHAM: (As Rebecca Welton) We want you to coach our women's team.
JASON SUDEIKIS: (As Ted Lasso) Are you trying to sabotage this team now, too, or something?
WADDINGHAM: (As Rebecca Welton) No, quite the opposite. Last time I hired you for all the wrong reasons. This time, I absolutely want to hire you for all the right ones.
FADEL: Immediately, though, Rebecca gets called out for not considering a woman to coach the team, and she questions herself - am I a feminist?
WADDINGHAM: There's a beautiful scene with Rebecca's mum. She's clearly been indoctrinated from birth by this mother, saying that very much so, in a very passive way and in a playful way, that women are inferior to men.
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: And Rebecca doesn't notice that until she's called out.
FADEL: But there is a version of that, I think, for all of us.
WADDINGHAM: Yeah. There is.
FADEL: ...Where we realize, oh, wait. No, we have been raised with these sort of internalized things.
WADDINGHAM: We've been passively indoctrinated generationally...
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: ...That women are less than. For sure. I was myself.
FADEL: Yeah. Same.
WADDINGHAM: But I suppose the sliding doors of myself and Rebecca Welton are that Rebecca doesn't realize until she's the age she is. Whereas I realized, probably when I was about 15...
FADEL: You're like, wait a second.
WADDINGHAM: ...That there was a male dominance in my family and that my mom was also indoctrinated by it, I don't mind saying.
FADEL: This is a fictional story, but it is playing out a conversation we're having in the real world, about the appeal of women's sports. So there are these big questions about, can we make money off a women's team? Is it a drain on the men's team, which we already know is popular? Is this fictional story a story for the real world?
WADDINGHAM: Oh, my gosh. Is it ever. And it's a story that's long overdue. You know, whenever I've been to see any women's sports in Britain, it's just empty seats. I mean, I love the fact that in the show, the way the writers have written our new girls, where they are just accepting of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TED LASSO")
SUDEIKIS: (As Ted Lasso) Wait, wait, so, hold on. Do y'all have to share this room?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And every other Saturday.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we get to keep our toiletries overnight.
SUDEIKIS: (As Ted Lasso) Oh, OK. So there are showers.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) There's one shower.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) And one toilet.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) And a urinal, which I actually prefer to use now.
WADDINGHAM: They don't even really notice anymore that they're just in, like, the visitor's room, that the door has a piece of tape over it that says their name on it. And they're just accepting of that because 'twas ever thus.
FADEL: You also came up in an industry that has very gendered ideas of what women and men should play and what they should play at different times in our lives, right?
WADDINGHAM: Well, you say that, but musical theater, we're a very happy gaggle all together.
FADEL: Yeah. That's true.
WADDINGHAM: The only thing that I found for the first 10, 12 years of my career...
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: ...My height.
FADEL: I wondered.
WADDINGHAM: I think they were, like, frightened of casting me because you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on.
FADEL: 'Cause you're 6'2"?
WADDINGHAM: Well, I'm 6'2" in heels. I'm 5'11".
FADEL: Oh, I'm 5'10".
WADDINGHAM: Are you?
FADEL: So I know the struggle (laughter)
WADDINGHAM: You know, I just got used - when I was first setting out, I had a CV or a bio that said 5-foot-10 and one that said 5-foot-11.
FADEL: Really?
WADDINGHAM: Because 5-foot-9 is more palatable and less intimidating than 5-foot-11. And I would kind of stand, like, into my hip and make myself less than.
FADEL: When did you stop that?
WADDINGHAM: Probably in my mid-20s. That's when I would say, well, oh, dear, I can't be the same size head as everyone else. I'll have to stand apart then.
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: You know, I've just turned 52. I have a 12-year-old daughter. And I'm a single mum, and I think it's really important to absolutely, at this age, very much so live in my power. And if I can change anything, even in terms of, like, casting, that's no small thing.
FADEL: I read something you said that really struck me as somebody - I'm just turned 45, and you're thinking, am I going to resist the wrinkles and not age like the world tells us we're not allowed anymore, or am I going to be who I am? And I read this quote from you that you said, I want full control of my face.
WADDINGHAM: Yep.
FADEL: Because I'm actually more confident, more settled at 52. So why would I want to make myself look like I'm 30 when I wasn't as happy at 30? I just wondered...
WADDINGHAM: Yeah.
FADEL: ...Why you speak so publicly about it and if you could say more about that feeling.
WADDINGHAM: For me. Let me prefix it with for me.
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: I'm not here to judge anyone else wanting to do anything. But for me, I am an old-school theater girl, and my face is my tool. I love moving people, whether it's to tears of laughter or making them look inwards about something in their own lives. I need my range of movement to do that. And I love the fact that the etchings on my face are my life. Played out as a canvas.
Does anybody like the aging process? Not particularly. Do I like looking at photos that we're not allowed to kind of slightly smooth out a bit? No. But, you know, it is what it is. And what's more important to me is being an actor first, and also for my daughter to see that she doesn't need to start sticking things in her face preemptively as people do now...
FADEL: Yeah.
WADDINGHAM: ...In her 20s. I can't speak to it and then not do it myself.
FADEL: Hannah Waddingham. Thank you so much for speaking with me and congratulations on Season 4.
WADDINGHAM: Thank you so much.
FADEL: Episode 1 of "Ted Lasso's" fourth season is out now on Apple TV. And a note - Apple is a financial supporter of NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARCUS MUMFORD & TOM HOWE'S "RICHMOND TAKE THE LEAD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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