After appearing in a Christmas special, and even singing in the Ted Lasso Christmas special, Hannah Waddingham is finally starring in her own holiday extravaganza.
Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas reunited the actor with several friends and cast-mates through festive holiday music. As the Christmas season is known for its campiness, Waddingham shares that she had a special audience in mind.
In a time with unprecedented anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being introduced and passed across the country, the actor recently told Tracy E. Gilchrist of Equal Entertainment that she wanted her holiday special "to be an absolute celebration of the LGBTQ community."
Hannah Waddingham dishes on her campy Christmas special
"I am a kindred spirit with the whole LGBTQ community," Waddingham shares. "I find there is something about people whose desire in life to be who they are is suppressed by others — I find it utterly appalling — and I want to do anything that I can to highlight the beauty of the souls that I have around me from the LGBTQ community."
While Christmas is full of camp, Waddingham notes that isn't all that her special features. As a patron of the London Gay Men's Chorus and lifelong ally, the actor says she "needed to have representation of the LGBTQ community" in order to show "it's not all about flounce or about glitter and whatever, but that they are beautiful, beautiful people that I would never be without."
The special also featured Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton, Luke Evans from Beauty and the Beast, and many of her Ted Lasso cast-mates. Love was certainly a central theme, as many of Waddingham'sco-stars volunteered to participate, either virtually or in person. Billy Harris even donned a bikini for part of the show, which Waddingham says was the most surprising part of their cameos.
"The fact that so many of them, whether it's on stage or in the in the video inserts — I can't believe so many of them made themselves available to me," she says. "And and it shows me that that their love for me is equal to mine for them."
To share in the love, stream Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas on Apple TV+. Catch Waddingham's full conversation above, and for more interviews like this, stream Equal Entertainmenton The Advocate Channel.
