In the early 2010s, after spending a good deal of her career performing in stage productions such as Spamalot and A Little Night Music, Hannah Waddingham wanted to try something different: acting on screen. Although she’d previously had small film and television roles here and there, her background was in opera and theater. But what seemed like a considerable risk to her at the time paid off in a big way—in the intervening years she has appeared in Game of Thrones, Sex Education, and Ted Lasso (for which she won an Emmy). On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Waddingham joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss why she enjoys playing characters with a gruff exterior, her perspective on turning 50, and the moment she learned she landed a part in the forthcoming Mission: Impossible film.

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