Hannah Waddingham is Home For Christmas this year on Apple TV+. She sat down with Melissa Nathoo as they got in the festive mood to talk Ted Lasso and just what the Christmas special means to her. Report by Nathoom. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 show is wonderful. Thank you. Wonderful. In your house when does Christmas start?
00:05 Because for me like it got to the first of November I was like I can put my
00:08 Christmas tree up now. Oh my god no I don't Christmas that early. Changed it into a verb.
00:13 I don't Christmas that early. When? Beginning of November. I love Christmas.
00:18 Don't begin it. Oh my god you go in early. Yes. I mean I would say well in general I would say
00:24 first of December. Okay. But if some songs creep in on my radio in the car
00:28 accidentally I'll whack up you know running around the Christmas tree. But
00:33 this year it started in February. I had just come back from shooting Fall Guy in
00:38 Sydney. Yeah. Not feeling particularly Christmassy because we're used to a cold
00:41 Christmas and they're used to a Christmas. But February came around and
00:47 myself and my brilliant musical supervisor Dave Tench got together and
00:50 were like right what are we gonna do? And I was a bit kind of overwhelmed about how
00:59 to try and because I'm very interested in the psychology of an audience and
01:03 taking them on a bit of a journey a bit of a pull and push of the kind of
01:08 kitsch of Christmas but also acknowledging that there are sad moments
01:13 lonely moments longing moments so it was getting that balance right. Right. So he
01:21 and I yeah we started in February and it feels like quite a long time ago now. But
01:26 now it's coming out the perfect time. I can't believe it's finally coming out. I could not
01:30 stop smiling when the Ted Lasso boys were on stage with you I can't tell you
01:35 how happy it made me. Honestly. What did it mean to you? Do you think they enjoyed it? I mean
01:41 just a little bit. Just a little bit. I mean the way they literally leap onto
01:45 the stage it's you'd think they're literally like actual Greyhounds
01:50 chained up and then you've suddenly let them go. Just brilliant and I was so
01:55 flattered and flabbergasted that when we put out the request to the Ted Lasso
02:01 family that everyone went yeah even the people that even couldn't make it
02:06 because they're working like Taheeb Jumeau still turned up. Incredible. So good.
02:10 Yeah. So so good. Yeah. I could see what the whole thing meant to you though being
02:16 back on home soil and doing that kind of show and you know where you're
02:19 seeing where your mum you know performed and you watched her. Yeah. Did they say
02:23 anything to you after the show had after you'd performed? Did they say anything to
02:27 you about what it meant to them? My dad gave me probably the biggest rib-crushing hug he's
02:32 he's ever done and he squeezed me and he said everyone's been saying to me did
02:37 you did you know she could do that and he said I absolutely knew she could do
02:41 that. Isn't it the best from dad as well? And even the fact that my mum was was
02:49 there was kind of a miracle both of them really because my dad had had quintuple
02:54 heart surgery emergency heart surgery on the very day I was shooting the funeral
02:58 episode of my character in Ted Lasso's father in season three the very day he
03:05 was having heart surgery and he survived that like an absolute Trojan and my mum
03:09 has quite pronounced Parkinson's and that's the first time she had been out
03:13 at all in months and there she was looking beautiful in her wheelchair at
03:19 the back and I love that the performer in her never goes when I wave at her she
03:23 waves at me and then she does like a royal wave to the whole of the auditorium.
03:28 Oh my god. Is there always singing in your house at Christmas? Oh no. All year round.
03:33 Oh my god. Yeah my daughter and I we're you know yeah we I don't know how
03:39 to not sing and my mum you know when I was at school my best friend would
03:45 ring and all my friends at school would tease me because my mum would go
03:49 it's Samantha on the phone. You know it's just it's just part of yeah it's in you.
03:55 Please can you do this every year? Oh all right then. Please it was it was
04:00 wonderful I would love to see I'd love to see more. I'm hoping that this is my
04:07 starter portion for everyone. It was great thank you so much. Thank you darling.