Hannah Waddingham Opens Up About Her Daughter in Rare Remarks
Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham expressed that she feels a sense of guilt “all the time” when she temporarily leaves her 12-year-old daughter for acting commitments.
“I’m about to head out for press for the next season of Ted [Lasso], and the motherly guilt hits hard,” Waddingham, 51, shared with The Guardian in an interview published on Saturday, July 18. “But I must try to combat it.”
Waddingham welcomed her daughter Kitty with Italian hotel manager Gianluca Cugnetto in 2014, although the couple parted ways in 2022.
The Emmy winner revealed she was “eight months pregnant” with Kitty when she received her breakout role on Game of Thrones as the vengeful Septa Unella. Although she considered declining the opportunity, she recognized it would be a mistake to forgo a “juggernaut” like Game of Thrones.
Still, Waddingham reflected on the overwhelming guilt of being away from newborn Kitty while filming her role in the HBO series.
“One part of me thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’” she remarked. “The other part was saying I’ve got significant separation anxiety. So when I watch it back, I see a woman who doesn’t know where she stands.”
Currently, Waddingham keeps something from her daughter close whenever she’s away for work — including a cardboard purse crafted by Kitty that she took to the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards (now known as The Actor Awards).
“I picked it up and thought, ‘It actually has more space than a typical designer handbag, so I’m taking it up the red carpet,’” she explained. “I did it intentionally, to show her that she’s never far from me.”
As her daughter approaches her teenage years, Waddingham has contemplated taking on a more extended role in theater. The British actress, who has received three nominations at the Laurence Olivier Awards, hasn’t returned to stage work since a 2015 London production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying due to the demanding nature of theater.
“I don’t think my daughter is ready,” she confessed, adding, “I need to carve out time to say, ‘I’m taking this coat off for now and donning my theatre coat again.’”
For now, Waddingham is reprising her role as soccer team owner Rebecca Welton in the highly anticipated fourth season of Ted Lasso, premiering on Apple TV+ in August.
Additionally, she has two significant film projects in the pipeline — an animated adaptation of Paul McCartney, Geoff Dunbar, and Philip Ardagh’s novel High in the Clouds and the surreal action-comedy Jason Statham Stole My Bike.
