Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham admitted that she feels guilty “all the time” when she has to temporarily leave her 12-year-old daughter for acting jobs.
“I’m about to go away to do press for the next season of Ted [Lasso], and the mummy guilt descends,” Waddingham, 51, told The Guardian in an interview published on Saturday, July 18. “But I have to try and combat it.”
Waddingham welcomed daughter Kitty with Italian hotel manager Gianluca Cugnetto in 2014, though the former couple split in 2022.
The Emmy winner revealed that she was “eight months pregnant” with Kitty when she was offered her international breakthrough role on Game of Thrones as the vengeful Septa Unella. While the actress considered turning down the job, she realized that it would be a mistake to pass up a “juggernaut” like Game of Thrones.
Still, Waddingham recalled feeling intense guilt about being away from newborn Kitty when it came time to film her role on the HBO series.
“[One part of me] just thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’” she said. “The other part was going, I’ve got terrible separation anxiety. So when I watch it back, I just see a woman who doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.”
Now, Waddingham tries to keep something from her daughter close when she’s away working — including bringing a cardboard purse designed by Kitty to the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards (now known as The Actor Awards).
“I picked it up and went, ‘It’s actually got more space in it than a normal, designer, ridiculous handbag, so I’m going to take it up the red carpet,’” she said. “I did it on purpose, to show her that she’s never far away from me.”
With her daughter entering her teenage years, Waddingham has contemplated taking an extended role on the stage. (The British actress has been nominated three times at the Laurence Olivier Awards but she hasn’t worked on the stage since a 2015 London production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying due to the rigorous demands of theater.)
“I don’t think my daughter is ready,” she admitted, adding, “I need to find the time to be able to go, ‘I’m taking this coat off for now and I’m putting my theatre coat back on.’”
For now, Waddingham is reprising her role as soccer team owner Rebecca Welton in the long-awaited fourth season of Ted Lasso, which premieres on Apple TV+ in August.
She also has two major movies in the works — 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.
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